






m<^l 




Class_35> 3117 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



COUNSELS BY THE WAY 



Counsels 

BY THE 

Way 



BY 



HENRY VAN DYKE 




New York 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



COPYRIGHT, 1897, 1900, 1903 AND I908 
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



iLiBRARY of OONGRBSs! 
Two Copies KeceiveO 

JUL 25 1908 

COPY 8, 



mmmtfimmmm 



.CL 
1968 



COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPE PLATES BY 
D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON 



DEDICATED IN FRIENDSHIP 

TO JOHN HUSTON FINLEY 

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF THE 

CITY OF NEW YORK 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

From time to time the present publishers have 
brought out separate essays by Dr. Van Dyke, un- 
der such distindlive titles as "Ships and Havens" 
(1897), "The Poetry of the Psalms" (1900), and 
"Joy and Power" (1903). These little books, each 
done in special type and printed in black and red, 
have found many thousands of readers. But requests 
have been received for a single volume containing 
all this material, in order that it may be preserved 
in permanent library form, and we have therefore 
issued the present book. The little gift books con- 
taining single essays may still be had as formerly. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

SHIPS AND HAVENS . 

I. PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 3 

II. WHITHER BOUND ? 1 2 

III. THE HAVEN OF WORK 1 9 

IV. THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 4I 

V. THE LAST PORT 50 

THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 59 

JOY AND POWER 93 

THE BATTLE OF LIFE 125 

THE GOOD OLD WAY I45 



/^ 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 



PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 

OF all the things that man has made, 
none is so full of interest and charm, 
none possesses so distind: a life and char- 
a6ler of its own, as a ship. 

"Ships are but boards," says Shylock in 
"The Merchant of Venice." But we feel 
that this is a thoroughly wooden opinion, 
one of those literal judgements which stick 
to the fa6ls and miss the truth. Ships have 
something more in them than the timbers 
of which they are made. Human thought 
and human labour and human love; the de- 
signer's clever conception, the builder's pa- 
tient toil, the explorer's daring venture, the 
merchant's costly enterprise, the sailor's 
loyal affedion, the traveller's hopes and 
fears, — all the manifold sympathies of hu- 
manity, — inform the dumb pilgrims of the 
sea with a human quality. There is a spirit 
within their oaken ribs, a significance in 
their strange histories. 
[ 3 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

The common language in which we speak 
of them is an unconscious confession of this 
feeling. We say of a ship, "She sails well. 
She minds her helm quickly. The wind is 
against her, but she makes good headway. 
We wish her a prosperous voyage." We en- 
dow her with personality; and, as if to ac- 
knowledge the full measure of our interest, 
we express it in terms which belong to the 
more interesting sex. 

One reason for this is undoubtedly the 
fad that the ship appears to us as a traveller 
to an unseen, and often an unknown, haven. 
It is the element of mystery, of adventure, 
of movement towards a secret goal, that 
fascinates our imagination, and draws our 
sympathy after it. When this is wanting, 
the ship loses something of her enchant- 
ment. 

There is a little cottage where I have 
spent many summers on the sleepy south- 
ern shore of Long Island. From the white 
porch we could look out upon a shallow, 
land-locked bay. There we saw, on every 
sunny day, a score of sailboats, flickering to 
and fro on the bright circle of water in swal- 
[4] 



PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 

low-flights, with no aim but their own mo- 
tion in the pleasant breeze. It was a flock 
of little play-ships, — a pretty sight, but it 
brought no stir to the thought, no thrill to 
the emotions. 

From the upper windows of the house 
the outlook surpassed a long line of ragged 
sand-dunes, and ranged across 

The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea. 

There went the real ships, of all shapes 
and sizes, of all rigs and models; the great 
steamers, building an airy pillar of cloud by 
day, a flashing pillar of fire by night; the 
ragged coasters, with their patched and 
dingy sails; the slim, swift yachts, hurry- 
ing by in gala dress, as if in haste to arrive 
at some distant, merry festival of Neptune's 
court. Sometimes they passed in groups, 
like flights of plover; sometimes in single 
file, like a flock of wild swans; sometimes 
separate and lonely, one appearing and van- 
ishing before the next hove in sight. 

When the wind was from the north they 
hugged the shore. With a glass one could 
see the wrinkled, weather-beaten face of the 
[5] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

man at the wheel, and the short pipe smok- 
ing between his Hps. When the wind was 
southerly and strong they kept far away, 
creeping slowly along the rim of the hori- 
zon. On a fair breeze they dashed along, wing 
and wing, with easy, level motion. When 
the wind was contrary they came beating in 
and out, close-hauled, tossing and labouring 
over the waves. It was a vision of endless 
variety and delight. But behind it all, giving 
life and interest to the scene, was the in- 
visible thought of the desired haven. 

Whither is she travelling, that long, four- 
masted schooner, with all her sails set to 
catch the fickle northwest breeze? Is it in 
some languid bay of the West Indies, or in 
some rocky harbour of Patagonia, amid the 
rigours of the far southern winter, that she 
will cast anchor? Where is she bound, that 
dark little tramp-steamer, trailing volumi- 
nous black smoke behind her, and buffet- 
ing her way to the eastward In the teeth of 
the rising gale? Is it in some sunlit port 
among the bare purple hills of Spain, or in 
the cool shadows of some forest-clad Nor- 
wegian fiord, that she will find her moor- 
[6] 



PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 

ings ? Whither away, ye ships ? What haven ? 
How often, and how exquisitely, this 
question of ships and havens has been ex- 
pressed by the poets (in prose and verse), 
who translate our thoughts for us. Long- 
fellow recalls a dream of his childhood in 
the seaport town of Portland : 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
And the sea-tides tossing free; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 
And the magic of the sea. 
And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still: 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

George William Curtis wanders down to 
the Battery, and meditates on "Sea from 
Shore:" "The sails were shaken out, and 
the ship began to move. It was a fair breeze 
perhaps, and no steamer was needed to tow 
her away. She receded down the bay. Friends 
turned back, — I could not see them, — and 
waved their hands, and wiped their eyes, 
and went home to dinner. Farther and far- 
[7] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

ther from the ships at anchor, the lessen- 
ing vessel became single and solitary upon 
the water. The sun sank in the west; but I 
watched her still. Every flash of her sails, as 
she tacked and turned, thrilled my heart. . . . 
I did not know the consignees nor the name 
of the vessel. I had shipped no adventure, 
nor risked any insurance, nor made any bet, 
but my eyes clung to her as Ariadne's to 
the fading sail of Theseus." 

And here is a bit of Rudyard Kipling's 
gusty music from "The Seven Seas :" 

The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks 

nor 'eeds — 
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 

'er all she needs; 
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the 

wet seas roun', 
They 're just the same as you and me, a- 

plyin' up an' down! 

But it is Wordsworth, the most intimate 
and searching interpreter of delicate, half- 
formed emotions, who has given the best 
expression to the feeling that rises within 
us at sight of a journeying ship: 

[8] 



PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 
With ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh 
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed: 
Some lying fast at anchor in the road, 
Some veering up and down, one knew not 

why. 
A goodly Vessel did I then espy 
Come like a giant from a haven broad; 
And lustily along the bay she strode, 
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high. 
This Ship was naught to me, nor I to her. 
Yet I pursued her with a Lover's look; 
This Ship to all the rest I did prefer: 
When will she turn, and whither? She will 

brook 
No tarrying: where she comes the winds 

must stir; 
On went she, and due north her journey 

took. 

Where lies the Land to which yon Ship 

must go? 
Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day 
Festively she puts forth in trim array; 
Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow? 
What boots the inquiry? — Neither friend 

nor foe 
She cares for; let her travel where she may 
She finds familiar friends, a beaten way 

[9] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 
Ever before her, and a wind to blow. 
Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark? 
And, almost as it was when ships were rare 
(From time to time, like Pilgrims, here and 

there 
Crossing the waters), doubt, and something 

dark. 
Of the old Sea some reverential fear 
Is with me at thy farewell, joyous Bark ! 

And is not this a parable, beautiful and 
suggestive, of the way in which we look 
out, in our thoughtful moods, upon the 
ocean of human life, and the men and wo- 
men who are voyaging upon it? In them 
also the deepest element of interest is that 
they are in motion. They are all going some- 
whither. They are not stationary objects in 
our view. They are not even, in this as- 
ped:, parts of the great tide of being in which 
they float. They are distindt, individual, 
separate. We single them out one by one. 
Each one is a voyager, with a port to seek, 
a course to run, a fortune to experience. The 
most interesting question that we can ask 
in regard to them is: Whither bound? 
What haven? 



PILGRIMS OF THE SEA 

But this inquiry comes to us now not as 
an idle or a curious question. For, first of 
all, we feel that these men and women are 
not strangers to us. We know why we take 
a personal interest in one more than in an- 
other. We know why we "pursue them 
with a lover's look." It is as if the "joy- 
ous Bark" carried some one that we knew, 
as if we could see a familiar face above the 
bulwarks, and hear a well-beloved voice 
hailing us across the waves. And then we 
realize that we also are en voyage. We do 
not stand on the shore as spedlators; we, 
too, are out on the ocean, sailing. All the 
"reverential fear of the old Sea," the peril, 
the mystery, the charm, of the voyage, 
come home to our own experience. The 
question becomes pressing, urgent, impor- 
tunate, as we enter into the depth of its 
meaning. Surely there is nothing that we 
can ever ask ourselves in which we have a 
closer, deeper interest, or to which we need 
to find a clearer, truer answer, than this 
simple, dired: question: What is our desired 
haven in the venturesome voyage of life? 

[ " ] 



II 

WHITHER BOUND? 

I WANT to talk with you about this 
question in this Httle book, as a writer 
may talk with a reader across the unknown 
intervals of time and space. The book that 
does not really speak to you is not worth 
much. And unless you really hear some- 
thing, and make some kind of an answer 
to it, you do not truly read. 

There is a disadvantage, of course, in the 
fad that you and I do not know each other 
and speak face to face. Who you are into 
whose hands this book has come, I cannot 
tell. And to you, I am nothing but a name. 
Where you may be while you turn these 
pages, I cannot guess. Perhaps you are sit- 
ting in your own quiet room after a hard 
day's work ; perhaps you are reading aloud 
in some circle of friends around the open 
fire; perhaps you are in the quiet woods, 
or out in the pleasant orchard under your 
favourite tree; perhaps you are actually on 
the deck of a ship travelling across the 

[ 12 ] 



WHITHER BOUND? 

waters. It is strange and wonderful to think 
of the many different places into which the 
words that I am now writing in this lonely, 
book-lined study may come, and of the 
many different eyes that may read them. 

But wherever you are, and whoever you 
may be, there is one thing in which you 
and I are just alike at this moment, and in 
all the moments of our existence. We are 
not at rest; we are on a journey. Our life 
is not a mere fa6t; it is a movement, a ten- 
dency, a steady, ceaseless progress towards 
an unseen goal. We are gaining something, 
or losing something, every day. Even when 
our position and our charader seem to re- 
main precisely the same, they are changing. 
For the mere advance of time is a change. 
It is not the same thing to have a bare field 
in January and in July. The season makes 
thedifference. The limitations that are child- 
like in the child are childish in the man. 

Everything that we do is a step in one 
diredlion or another. Even the failure to do 
something is in itself a deed. It sets us for- 
ward or backward. The ad:ion of the ne- 
gative pole of a magnetic needle is just as 
[ 13] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

real as the a6tion of the positive pole. To 
decline is to accept — the other alternative. 

Are you richer to-day than you were yes- 
terday? No? Then you are a little poorer. 
Are you better to-day than you were yes- 
terday? No? Then you are a little worse. 
Are you nearer to your port to-day than 
you were yesterday? Yes, — you must be a 
little nearer to some port or other; for since 
your ship was first launched upon the sea 
of life, you have never been still for a single 
moment; the sea is too deep, you could not 
find an anchorage if you would; there can 
be no pause until you come into port. 

But what is it, then, the haven towards 
which you are making? What is the goal 
that you desire and hope to reach? What 
is the end of life towards which you are 
drifting or steering? 

There are three ways in which we may 
look at this question, depending upon the 
point of view from which we regard human 
existence. 

When we think of It as a work, the ques- 
tion is, " What do we desire to accomplish ? " 

When we think of it as a growth, a devel- 
[ '4] 



WHITHER BOUND? 

opment, a personal unfolding, the question 
is, "What do we desire to become?" 

When we think of it as an experience, a 
destiny, the question is, " What do we de- 
sire to become of us?" 

Do not imagine for an instant that these 
questions can be really separated. They are 
interwoven. They cross each other from 
end to end of the web of life. The answer 
to one question determines the answer to 
the others. We cannot divide our work 
from ourselves, nor isolate our future from 
our qualities. A ship might as well try to 
sail north with her jib, and east with her 
foresail, and south with her mainsail, as a 
man to go one way in condud:, and another 
way in charadter, and another way in de- 
stiny. 

What we do belongs to what we are; and 
what we are is what becomes of us. 

And yet, as a matter of fadt, there is a 
difference in these three standpoints from 
which we may look at our life; and this dif- 
ference not only makes a little variation in 
the view that we take of our existence, but 
also influences unconsciously our manner 
[■5] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

of thinking and speaking about it. Most of 
the misunderstandings that arise when we 
are talking about life come from a failure 
to remember this. We are looking at the 
same thing, but we are looking from oppo- 
site corners of the room. We are discussing 
the same subjeft, but in different dialedls. 

Some people — perhaps the majority — 
are of a praftical turn of mind. Life seems 
to them principally an ajffair of definite 
labour diredted to certain positive results. 
They are usually thinking about what they 
are to do in the world, and what they are 
to get for it. It is a question of occupation, 
of accomplishment, of work and wages. 

Other people — and I think almost all 
serious-minded people when they are young, 
and life still appears fresh and wonderful 
to them — regard their existence from the 
standpoint of sentiment, of feeling, of per- 
sonality. They have their favourite charac- 
ters in history or fidlon, whom they admire 
and try to imitate. They have their ideals, 
which they seek and hope to realize. Some 
vision of triumph over obstacles, and vic- 
tory over enemies, some model of manhood 

[ '6] 



WHITHER BOUND? 

or womanhood, shines before them. By that 
standard they test and measure themselves. 
Towards that end they dire<5l their efforts. 
The question of life, for them, is a ques- 
tion of attainment, of self-discipline, of self- 
development. 

Other people — and I suppose we may 
say all people at some time or other in their 
experience — catch a glimpse of life in still 
wider and more mysterious relations. They 
see that it is not really, for any one of us, 
an independent and self-centred and self- 
controlled affair. They feel that its issues 
run out far beyond what we can see in this 
world. They have a deep sense of a future 
state of being towards which we are all 
inevitably moving. This movement cannot 
be a matter of chance. It must be under 
law, under responsibility, under guidance. 
It cannot be a matter of indifference to us. 
It ought to be the objedt of our most earnest 
concern, our most careful choice, our most 
determined endeavour. Ifthere is a port be- 
yond the horizon, we should know where 
it lies and how to win it. And so the ques- 
tion of life, in these profound moods which 
[ ^7 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

come to all of us, presents itself as a ques- 
tion of eternal destiny. 

Now, if we are to understand each other, 
if we are to get a view of the subjed: which 
shall be anything like a well-rounded view, 
a complete view, we must look at the ques- 
tion from all three sides. We must ask our- 
selves : What is our desired haven, first, in 
achievement; and second, in character; and 
last, in destiny? 



[ i8] 



Ill 

THE HAVEN OF WORK 

SURELY we ought to know what it is 
that we really want to do in the world, 
what pra6lical result we desire to accom- 
plish with our lives. And this is a question 
which it will be very wise to ask and an- 
swer before we determine what particular 
means we shall use in order to perform our 
chosen work and to secure the desired re- 
sult. A man ought to know what he pro- 
poses to make before he seledsand prepares 
his tools. A captain should have a clear idea 
of what port he is to reach before he at- 
tempts to lay his course and determine his 
manner of sailing. 

All these minor questions of ways and 
means must come afterwards. They cannot 
be settled at the outset. They depend on 
circumstances. They change with the sea- 
sons. There are many paths to the same 
end. One may be best to-day; another may 
be best to-morrow. The wind and the tide 
make a difference. One way may be best 
[ '9] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

for you, another way for me. The build of 
the ship must be taken into consideration. 
A flat-bottomed craft does best in the shal- 
low water, along shore. A deep keel is for 
the open sea. 

But before we make up our minds how 
to steer from day to day, we must know 
where we are going in the long run. Then 
we can shape our course to fit our purpose. 
We can learn how to meet emergencies as 
they arise. We can change our diredtion to 
avoid obstacles and dangers. We can take 
a roundabout way if need be. If we keep 
the thought of our desired haven clearly be- 
fore us, all the other points can be more 
easily and wisely settled; and however de- 
vious and difficult the voyage may be, it 
will be a success when we get there. 

I am quite sure that a great deal of the 
confusion and perplexity of youth, and a 
great deal of the restlessness and fickleness 
which older people often criticise so severely 
and so unjustly, come from the attempt to 
choose an occupation in life before the 
greater question of the real objedt of our 
life-work has been fairly faced and settled. 

[20] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

" What are you going to do when you grow 
up ? " This is the favourite conundrum which 
the kind aunts and uncles put to the boys 
when they come home from school ; and of 
late they are beginning to put it to the girls 
also, since it has been reluctantly admitted 
that a girl may rightly have something to 
say about what she would like to do in the 
world. But how is it possible to make any- 
thing more than a blind guess at the an- 
swer, unless the boy or the girl has some 
idea of the pradical end which is to be 
worked for. To choose a trade, a business, 
a profession, without knowing what kind of 
a result you want to get out of your labour, 
is to set sail in the dark. It is to have a 
course, but no haven; an employment, but 
no vocation. 

There are really only four great practical 
ends for which men and women can work 
in this world, — Pleasure, Wealth, Fame, 
and Usefulness. We owe it to ourselves to 
consider them carefully, and to make up 
our minds which of them is to be our chief 
objed in life. 

Pleasure is one aim in life, and there are 

[21 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

a great many people who are following it, 
consciously or unconsciously, as the main 
end of all their efforts. Now, pleasure is a 
word which has a double meaning. It may 
mean the satisfaction of all the normal de- 
sires of our manhood in their due propor- 
tion, and in this sense it is a high and noble 
end. There is a pleasure in the intelligent 
exercise of all our faculties, in the friend- 
ship of nature, in the perception of truth, 
in the generosity of love, in the achieve- 
ments of heroism, in the deeds of benefi- 
cence, in the triumphs of self-sacrifice. " It 
is not to taste sweet things," says Carlyle, 
" but to do true and noble things, and vin- 
dicate himself under God's Heaven as a 
God-made man, that the poorest son of 
Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of 
doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles 
into a hero." 

But pleasure as we commonly speak of 
it means something very different from this. 
It denotes the immediate gratification of 
our physical senses and appetites and in- 
clinations. There is a free gift of pleasant 
sensation attached by the Creator to the ful- 

[ 22] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 
filment of our natural propensions. The 
taking of food, for example, not only nour- 
ishes the body, but also gratifies the palate; 
the quenching of thirst is agreeable to the 
senses as well as necessary to the mainte- 
nance of life. No sane and wholesome thinker 
has ventured to deny that it is lawful and 
wise to receive this gratuitous gift of plea- 
sure, and rejoice in it, as it comes to us in 
this world wherein God has caused to grow 
"every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 
good for food." But when we make the re- 
ception of the agreeable sensation the chief 
end and motive of our adlion, when we di- 
red our will and our effort to the attainment 
of this end, then we enter upon a pleasure- 
seeking life. We make that which should 
be our servant to refresh and cheer us, our 
master to diredt and rule and drive us. 

The evil nature of this transformation is 
suggested in the very names which we give 
to human condud in which the gratification 
of the senses has become the controlling 
purpose. The man who lives for the sake 
of the enjoyment that he gets out of eating 
and drinking is a glutton or a drunkard. 
[^3] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

The man who measures the success and 
happiness of his Hfe by its physical sensa- 
tions, whether they be coarse and brutal or 
delicate and refined, is a voluptuary. 

A pleasure-seeking life, in this sense, 
when we think of it clearly and carefully, is 
one which has no real end or goal outside 
of itself. Its aim is unreal and transitory, 
a passing thrill in nerves that decay, an 
experience that leads nowhere, and leaves 
nothing behind it. Robert Burns knew the 
truth of what he wrote: 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, the bloom is shed! 

The man who chooses pleasure as the ob- 
ject of his life has no real haven, but is like 
a boat that beats up and down and drifts to 
and fro, merely to feel the motion of the 
waves and the impulse of the wind. When 
the voyage of life is done he has reached 
no port, he has accomplished nothing. 

One of the wisest of the ancients, the 
Stoic philosopher Seneca, wrote a letter to 
his brother Gallio (the Roman governor be- 
fore whom St. Paul was tried in Corinth), 

[ 24] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 
in which he speaks very frankly about the 
folly of a voluptuous life. "Those who have 
permitted pleasure to lead the van . . . lose 
virtue altogether; and yet they do not pos- 
sess pleasure, but are -possessed by it^ and are 
either tortured by its absence, or choked 
by its excess, being wretched if deserted by 
it, and yet more wretched if overwhelmed 
by it ; like those who are caught in the shoals 
of the Syrtes, and at one time are stranded 
on dry ground, and at another tossed on 
the furious billows. . . . As we hunt wild 
beasts with toil and peril, and even when 
they are caught find them an anxious pos- 
session, for they often tear their keepers to 
pieces, even so are great pleasures: they 
turn out to be great evils, and take their 
owners prisoner." 

This is the voice of human prudence and 
philosophy. The voice of religion is even 
more clear and piercing. St. Paul says of 
the pleasure-seekers: "Whose end is de- 
struction, whose god is their belly, whose 
glory is their shame, who mind earthly 
things." And in another place, lest we should 
forget that this is as true of women as it is 
[ 25 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

of men, he says: "She that liveth in plea- 
sure is dead while she liveth." That saying 
is profoundly true. It goes to the bottom of 
the subjedt. A pleasure-seeking life is a liv- 
ing death, because its objed perishes even 
while it is attained, and at the end nothing 
is left of it but dust and corruption. 

Think of the result of existence in the 
man or woman who has lived chiefly to 
gratify the physical appetites; think of its 
real emptiness, its real repulsiveness, when 
old age comes, and the senses are dulled, 
and the roses have faded, and the lamps at 
the banquet are smoking and expiring, and 
desire fails, and all that remains is the fierce, 
insatiable, ugly craving for delights which 
have fled for evermore; think of the bitter, 
burning vacancy of such an end, — and you 
must see that pleasure is not a good haven 
to seek in the voyage of life. 

But what of wealth as a desired haven? 
When we attempt to consider this subject 
we have especial need to follow Dr. Sam- 
uel Johnson's blunt advice and "clear our 
minds of cant." There is a great deal of fool- 
ish railing against wealth, which takes for 
[26] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

granted, now that it is an unsubstantial and 
illusory good, and now that it is not a good 
at all, but only an unmixed evil, and the 
root of all other evils. Many preachers and 
moralists talk about wealth in this way, but 
they do not really think about it in this 
way. They know better. And when young 
people discover and observe the curious 
inconsistency between the teacher's words 
and his thoughts, as illuminated by his con- 
du6t, they are likely to experience a sense 
of disappointment, and a serious revulsion 
from dod;rine which does not seem to be 
sincere. 

Wealth is simply the visible result of 
human labour, or of the utilization of na- 
tural forces and produdis, in such a form 
that it can be exchanged. A gallon of water 
in a mountain lake is not wealth. But the 
same gallon of water conveyed through an 
aquedud and delivered in the heart of a 
great city represents a certain amount of 
wealth, because it has a value in relation to 
the wants of men. A tree growing in an in- 
accessible forest is not wealth. But a stick 
of timber which can be delivered in a place 
[27 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

where men are building houses is a bit of 
wealth. 

Now, the symbol and measure of wealth 
is money. It is the common standard by 
which the value of different commodities is 
estimated, and the means by which they 
are exchanged. It is not a dream nor a de- 
lusion. It is something real and solid. It is 
deserving of our resped: under certain con- 
ditions and within certain limitations. The 
man who professes an absolute contempt for 
money is either a little of a fool or a good 
deal of a fraud. It represents a produd: of la- 
bour and a form of power. It is worth work- 
ing for. When a man has won it, there it 
is — a fa6l and a force. He can handle it, use 
it, dispose of it, as he chooses. 

But stop a moment; let us think! Is that 
altogether true? It is partly true, no doubt; 
for every particle of wealth, or of its sym- 
bol, money, is an adual possession of which 
its owner can dispose. But it is not the whole 
truth; for the fadt is that he must dispose 
of it, because that is the only way in which 
it becomes available as wealth. A piece of 
money in an old stocking is no more than 
[ 28 ] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

a leaf upon a tree. It is only when the coin 
is taken out and used that it becomes of 
value. And the nature of the value depends 
upon the quality of the use. 

Moreover, it is not true that a man can 
dispose of his money as he chooses. The pur- 
poses for which it can be used are stridtly 
bounded. There are many things that he 
cannot buy with it; for example, health, long 
life, wisdom, a cheerful spirit, a clear con- 
science, peace of mind, a contented heart. 

You never see the stock called Happi- 
ness quoted on the exchange. How high 
would it range, think you, — a hundred 
shares of Happiness Preferred, guaranteed 
seven per cent, seller thirty? 

And there are some things that a man 
cannot do with his wealth. For instance, he 
cannot carry it with him when he dies. No 
system of transfer has been established be- 
tween the two worlds; and a large balance 
here does not mean a balance on the other 
side of the grave. The property of Dives 
did not fall in value when he died, and yet 
he became a pauper in the twinkling of an 
eye. 

[29] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

There is no question but that those who 
live to win wealth in this world have a more 
real and substantial end in view than the 
mere pleasure-seekers. But the thing that 
we ought to understand and remember is 
precisely" what that end is. It is the acqui- 
sition in our hands of a certain thing whose 
possession is very brief, and whose value 
depends entirely upon the use to which it 
is put. Now, if we make the mere gaining 
of that thing the desired haven of our life, 
we certainly spend our strength for naught, 
and our labour for that which satisfieth not. 
We narrow and contract our whole exist- 
ence. We degrade it by making it terminate 
upon something which is only a sign, a sym- 
bol, behind which we see no worthy and en- 
during reality. It is for this reason that the 
"Wind vice" of avarice, as Juvenal calls it, 
has been particularly despised by the wise 
of all lands and ages. There is no other 
fault that so quickly makes the heart small 
and hard. 

They soon grow old who grope for gold 
In marts where all is bought and sold; 
Who live for self, and on some shelf 
[30] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

In darkened vaults hoard up their pelf; 
Cankered and crusted o'er with mould, 
For them their youth itself is old. 

Nor is there any other service that appears 
more unprofitable and ridiculous in the end, 
when the reward for which the money-maker 
has given his life is stripped away from him 
with a single touch, and he is left with his 
trouble for his pains. 

If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; 
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows. 
Thou bear'st thy heavy burden but a journey, 
And death unloads thee. 

But perhaps you imagine that no one is in 
danger of making that mistake, no one is 
so foolish as to seek wealth merely for its 
own sake. Do you think so? Then, what 
shall we say of that large class of men, so 
prominent and so influential in modern so- 
ciety, whose energies are desperately con- 
secrated to the winning of great fortunes? 
So far as their life speaks for them, they 
have no real ambition beyond that. They 
are not the leaders in noble causes, the sus- 
tainers of beneficent enterprises. They have 

[ 31 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

no refined and elevated tastes to gratify. 
They are not the promoters of art or sci- 
ence, the adorners of their city with splen- 
did buildings, the supporters of humane 
and beautiful charities. They have no large 
plans, no high and generous purposes. They 
have no public spirit, only an intense pri- 
vate greed. All that we can say of them is 
that they are rich, and that they evidently 
want to be richer. 

They sit like gigantic fowls brooding up- 
on nests of golden eggs, which never hatch. 
Their one desire is not to bring anything out 
of the eggs, but to get more eggs into their 
nest. It is a form of lunacy, — auromania. 
But let us not suppose that these noto- 
rious examples are the only ones who are 
touched with this insanity. It is just the 
same in the man who is embittered by fail- 
ure, as in the man who is elated by success; 
just the same in those who make it the chief 
end of life to raise their hundreds of dol- 
lars to thousands, as in those who express 
their ambition in terms of seven figures. 
Covetousness is idolatry of wealth. It may 
be paid to a little idol as well as to a big 
[32] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

one. Avarice may be married to Poverty, and 
then its offspring is named Envy; or it may 
be married to Riches, and then its children 
are called Purse-pride and Meanness. Some 
people sell their lives for heaps of treasure, 
and some for a scant thirty pieces of silver, 
and some for nothing better than a promis- 
sory note of fortune, without endorsement. 

There are multitudes of people in the 
world to-day who are steering and sailing 
for Ophir, simply because it is the land of 
gold. What will they do if they reach their 
desired haven? They do not know. They 
do hot even ask the question. They will be 
rich. They will sit down on their gold. 

Let us look our desires squarely in the 
face! To win riches, to have a certain bal- 
ance in the bank and a certain rating on 
the exchange, is a real objed, a definite ob- 
jed:; but it is a frightfully small objedt for 
the devotion of a human life, and a bitterly 
disappointing reward for the loss of an im- 
mortal soul. If wealth is our desired haven, 
we may be sure that it will not satisfy us 
when we reach it. 

Well, then, what shall we say of fame as 
[33] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 
the chief end of life? Here, again, we must 
be careful to discriminate between the thing 
itself and other things which are often con- 
fused with it. Fame is simply what our 
fellow-men think and say of us. It may be 
world-wide; it may only reach to a single 
country or city; it may be confined to a nar- 
row circle of society. Translated in one way, 
fame is glory; translated in another way, it 
is merely notoriety. It is a thing which ex- 
ists, of course; for the thoughts of other 
people about us are just as adlual as our 
thoughts about ourselves, or as the charac- 
ter and condud: with which those thoughts 
are concerned. But the three things do not 
always correspond. 

You remember what Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes says, in "The Autocrat of the 
Breakfast-Table," about the three Johns : 

1. The real John; known only to his 
Maker. 

2. John's ideal John ; never the real one, 
and often very unlike him. 

3. Thomas's ideal John; never the real 
John, nor John's John, but often very un- 
like either. 

[34] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

Now, the particular objedl of the life that 
makes fame its goal is this last John. Its 
success consists in the report of other 
people's thoughts and remarks about us. 
Bare, naked fame, however great it may be, 
can never bring us anything more than an 
instantaneous photograph of the way we 
look to other men. 

Consider what it is worth. It may be 
good or bad, flattering or painfully truthful. 
People are celebrated sometimes for their 
vices, sometimes for their follies. Anything 
out of the ordinary line will attrad: notice. 
Notoriety may be purchased by a colossal 
extravagance or a monumental absurdity. 
A person has been made notorious simply 
by showing himself "more kinds of a fool" 
than any one else in the community. 

Many men would be famous for their 
vanity alone, if it were not so common that 
it no longer serves as a mark of distindion. 
We often fancy that we are occupying a 
large place in the attention of the world, 
when really we do not even fill a pin-hole. 

To be governed in our course of life by 
a timorous consideration of what the world 
[35] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

will think of us is to be even lighter and 
more fickle than a weathercock. It is to be 
blown about by winds so small and slight 
that they could not even lift a straw outside 
of our own versatile imagination. For what 
is "the world," for whose admiration, or 
envy, or mere notice, we are willing to give 
so much? "Mount up," says a wise man, 
"in a monomania of vanity, the number of 
those who bestow some passing thought 
upon you, as high as you dare; and what is 
this 'world' but a very few miserable items 
of human existence, which, when they dis- 
appear, none will miss, any more than they 
will miss thyself?" 

There is one point in which fame differs 
very essentially from wealth and pleasure. 
If it comes to us without being well earned 
it cannot possibly be enjoyed. A pleasure 
may arrive by chance, and still it will be 
pleasant. A sum of money may be won by 
a gambler, and still it is real money; he can 
spend it as he pleases. But fame without a 
corresponding merit is simply an unmiti- 
gated burden. I cannot imagine a more mis- 
erable position than that of the poor scrib- 

[36] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 
bier who allowed his acquaintances to con- 
gratulate him as the writer of George Eliot's 
early stories. To have the name of great 
wisdom, and at the same time to be a very 
foolish person, is to walk through the world 
in a suit of armour so much too big and 
too heavy for you that it makes every step 
a painful effort. To have a fine reputation 
and a mean character is to live a lie and die 
a sham. And this is the danger to which 
every one who seeks diredly and primarily 
for fame is exposed. 

One thing is certain in regard to fame: 
for most of us it will be very brief in itself; 
for all of us it will be transient in our en- 
joyment of it. 

When death has dropped the curtain we 
shall hear no more applause. And though 
we fondly dream that it will continue after 
we have left the stage, we do not realize how 
quickly it will die away in silence, while the 
audience turns to look at the new adlor and 
the next scene. Our position in society will 
be filled as soon as it is vacated, and our 
name remembered only for a moment, — ex- 
cept, please God, by a few who have learned 
[37 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 
to love us, not because of fame, but because 
we have helped them and done them some 
good. 

This thought brings us, you see, within 
clear sight of the fourth pradtical aim in life, 
— the one end that is really worth working 
for, — usefulness. To desire and strive to be 
of some service to the world, to aim at do- 
ing something which shall really increase the 
happiness and welfare and virtue of man- 
kind — this is a choice which is possible for 
all of us; and surely it is a good haven to 
sail for. 

The more we think of it, the more at- 
tractive and desirable it becomes. To do 
some work that is needed, and to do it thor- 
oughly well; to make our toil count for 
something in adding to the sum total of what 
is adually profitable for humanity; to make 
two blades of grass grow where one grew 
before, or, better still, to make one whole- 
some idea take root in a mind that was bare 
and fallow; to make our example count for 
something on the side of honesty, and cheer- 
fulness, and courage, and good faith, and 
love — this is an aim for life which is very 

[38] 



THE HAVEN OF WORK 

wide, as wide as the world, and yet very de- 
finite, as clear as light. It is not in the least 
vague. It is only free; it has the power to 
embody itself in a thousand forms without 
changing its charadter. Those who seek it 
know what it means, however it may be ex- 
pressed. It is real and genuine and satisfy- 
ing. There is nothing beyond it, because 
there can be no higher practical result of 
effort. It is the translation, through many 
languages, of the true, divine purpose of 
all the work and labour that is done beneath 
the sun, into one final, universal word. It is 
the adlive consciousness of personal har- 
mony with the will of God who worketh 
hitherto. 

To have this for the chief aim in life 
ennobles and dignifies all that it touches. 
Wealth that comes as the reward of use- 
fulness can be accepted with honour; and, 
consecrated to further usefulness, it be- 
comes royal. Fame that comes from noble 
service, the gratitude of men, be they few 
or many, to one who has done them good, 
is true glory; and the influence that it 
brings is as near to godlike power as any- 
[ 39 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

thing that man can attain. But whether these 
temporal rewards are bestowed upon us or 
not, the real desire of the soul is satisfied 
just in being useful. The pleasantest word 
that a man can hear at the close of the day, 
whispered in secret to his soul, is, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant!" 

Christ tells us this: "He that loseth his 
life shall find it." "Whosoever will be great 
among you, let him be your minister; and 
whosoever will be chief among you, let him 
be your servant." 

Life is divine when duty is a joy. 

Do we accept these sailing orders? Is it 
really the desired haven of all our aftivity 
to do some good in the world; to carry our 
share of the great world's burden which 
must be borne, to bring our lading of trea- 
sure, be it small or great, safely into the 
port of usefulness? I wonder how many of 
us have faced the question and settled it. It 
goes very deep. 



[40] 



IV 
THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 

BUT deeper still the question goes when 
we look at it in another light. Our 
life is made up, not of actions alone, but of 
thoughts and feelings and habitual affedlions. 
These taken all together constitute what 
we call our present character. In their ten- 
dencies and impulses and dominant desires 
they constitute our future charafter, towards 
which we are moving as a ship to her haven. 

What is it, then, for you and me, this 
intimate ideal, this distant self, this hidden 
form of personality which is our goal? 

I am sure that we do not often enough 
put the problem clearly before us in this 
shape. We all dream of the future, espe- 
cially when we are young. 

A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts. 

But our dreams are too much like the 
modern stage, full of elaborate scenery and 

[41 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

machinery, crowded with startling efFedts 
and brilliant costumes and magical trans- 
formations, but strangely vacant of all real 
character. 

The stuff of which our day-dreams are 
made is for the most part of very cheap 
material. We seldom weave into them the 
threads of our inmost spiritual life. We 
build castles in Spain, and forecast adven- 
tures in Bohemia. But the castle is without 
a real master. The hero of the adventure 
is vague and misty. We do not clearly re- 
cognize his face, or know what is in his 
heart. 

We pidure ourselves as living here or 
there; we imagine ourselves as members of 
a certain circle of society, taking our places 
among the rich, the powerful, the "smart 
set." We fancy ourselves going through 
the various experiences of life, a fortunate 
marriage, a successful business career, a lit- 
erary triumph, a political vidory. Or per- 
haps, if our imagination is of a more sombre 
type, we foreshadow ourselves in circum- 
stances of defeat and disappointment and 
adversity. But in all these reveries we do 
[42 ] 



THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 

not really think deeply of our Selves. We 
do not stay to ask what manner of men 
and women we shall be, when we are liv- 
ing here or there, or doing thus or so. 

Yet it is an important question, — very 
much more important, in fad, than the thou- 
sand and one trifling interrogatories about 
the future with which we amuse our idle 
hours. 

And the strange thing is that, though 
our ideal of future character is so often hid- 
den from us, overlooked, forgotten, it is 
always there, and always potently, though 
unconsciously, shaping our course in life. 
"Every one," says Cervantes, "is the son 
of his own works." But his works do not 
come out of the air, by chance. They are 
wrought out in a secret, instin6live harmony 
with a conception of charadter which we in- 
wardly acknowledge as possible and likely 
for us. 

When we choose between two lines of 
condud, between a mean adlion and a noble 
one, we choose also between two persons, 
both bearing our name, the one represent- 
ing what is best in us, the other embody- 
[43 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

ing what is worst. When we vacillate and 
alternate between them, we veer, as the man 
in Robert Louis Stevenson's story veered, 
between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

We say that we "make up our minds" 
to do a certain thing or not to do it, to re- 
sist a certain temptation or to yield to it. 
It is true. We "make up our minds" in 
a deeper sense than we remember. In every 
case the ultimate decision is between two 
future selves, one with whom the virtue is 
harmonious, another with whom the vice 
is consistent. To one of these two figures, 
dimly concealed behind the adion, we move 
forward. What we forget is that, when the 
forward step is taken, the shadow will be 
myself, Chara6ter is eternal destiny. 

There is a profound remark in George 
Eliot's " Middlemarch" which throws light 
far down into the abyss of many a lost life. 
"We are on a perilous margin when we be- 
gin to look passively at our future selves, 
and see our own figures led with dull con- 
sent into insipid misdoing and shabby 
achievement." But there is a brighter side 
to this same truth of life philosophy. We 
[44 ] 



THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 
are on a path which leads upward, by sure 
and steady steps, when we begin to look 
at our future selves with eyes of noble hope 
and clear purpose, and see our figures climb- 
ing, with patient, dauntless effort, towards 
the heights of true manhood and woman- 
hood. Visions like these are Joseph's dreams. 
They are stars for guidance. They are 
sheaves of promise. The very memory of 
them, if we cherish it, is a power of pure re- 
straint and generous inspiration. 

Oh, for a new generation of day-dream- 
ers, young men and maidens who shall be- 
hold visions, idealists who shall see them- 
selves as the heroes of coming conflidls, the 
heroines of yet unwritten epics of trium- 
phant compassion and stainless love. From 
their hearts shall spring the renaissance of 
faith and hope. The ancient charm of true 
romance shall flow forth again to glorify 
the world in the brightness of their ardent 
eyes, — 

The light that never was on land or sea, 
The consecration and the poet's dream. 

As they go out from the fair gardens of 

[45] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

a visionary youth into the wide, confused, 
turbulent field of life, they will bring with 
them the marching music of a high resolve. 
They will strive to fulfil the fine prophecy 
of their own best desires. They will not ask 
whether life is worth living, — they will make 
it so. They will transform the sordid "strug- 
gle for existence" into a glorious effort to 
become that which they have admired and 
loved. 

But such a new generation is possible only 
through the regenerating power of the truth 
that "a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things that he possesseth." We 
must learn to recognize the real realities, 
and to hold them far above the perishing 
trappings of existence which men call real. 

The glory of our life below 

Comes not from what we do or what we know, 

But dwells for evermore in what we are. 

"He only is advancing in life," says John 
Ruskin," whose heart is getting softer, whose 
blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose 
spirit is entering into Living peace. And the 
men who have this life in them are the true 

[46] 



THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 

lords or kings of the earth — they, and they 
only." 

Now I think you can see what is meant 
by this question of the desired haven in 
charadter. What manner of men and wo- 
men do we truly hope and wish to become? 

The number of ideals seems infinite. But, 
after all, there are only two great types. 
St. Paul calls them "the carnal" and "the 
spiritual;" and I know of no better names. 

The carnal type of charadier, weak or 
strong, clever or stupid, is always self-ruled, 
governed by its own appetites and pas- 
sions, seeking its own ends, and, even when 
conformed to some outward law or code of 
honour, obedient only because it finds its 
own advantage or comfort therein. There is 
many a man who stands upright only be- 
cause the pressure of the crowd makes it 
inconvenient for him to stoop. "The churl 
in spirit" may speak fair words because of 
those who hear; but in his heart he says the 
thing that pleases him, which is vile. 

The spiritual type of charader is divinely 
ruled, submissive to a higher law, doing an- 
other will than its own, seeking the ends of 

[47] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

virtue and holiness and unselfish love. It 
may have many inward struggles, many de- 
feats, many bitter renunciations and regrets. 
It may appear far less peaceful, orderly, 
self-satisfied, than some of those who are 
secretly following the other ideal. Many a 
saint in the making seems to be marred by 
faults and conflicts from which the smug, 
careful, reputable sensualist is exempt. The 
difference between the two is not one of po- 
sition. It is one of diredion. The one, how- 
ever high he stands, is moving down. The 
other, however low he starts, is moving up. 
We all know who it is that stands at the 
very summit of the spiritual pathway, — 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became 
a perfedt man, leaving us an example that 
we should follow in his steps. We know, 
too, the steps in which he trod, — obedi- 
ence, devotion, purity, truthfulness, kind- 
ness, resistance of temptation, self-sacrifice. 
And we know the result of following him, 
until we come, in the unity of the faith and 
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
perfedl manhood, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ. 
[48 ] 



THE HAVEN OF CHARACTER 

Which type of charadler do we honestly 
desire and exped: to reach? Let us not in- 
dulge in any delusions about it. Just as 
surely as our faces are hardening into a 
certain expression, ugly or pleasant, and our 
bodies are moving towards a certain con- 
dition of health, sound or diseased, so surely 
are our souls moving towards a certain type 
of charader. Along which line are we look- 
ing and steering? — along the line that leads 
to an older, grayer, stiffer likeness of our 
present selves, with all our selfishness and 
pride and impurity and inconsistency and 
discontent confirmed and hardened; or the 
line that ends in likeness to Christ? 

Surely we are voyaging blindly unless we 
know what haven of character our souls are 
seeking. Surely we are making a mad and 
base and fatal choice, unless we dire6l our 
course to the highest and the noblest goal. 
To know Christ is life eternal. To become 
like Christ is success everlasting. 



[49 ] 



V 
THE LAST PORT 

THERE is still one more way of put- 
ting this question about our desired 
haven, — a way perhaps more common than 
the others, and therefore probably more 
natural, though I cannot believe that it is 
more important. It is,in fad;, simply a carry- 
ing on of the first two questions beyond 
the horizon of mortal sight, a prolongation 
of the voyage of life upon the ocean of 
eternity. 

Almost all of us have an expedation, 
however dim and misty, of an existence of 
some kind after we have crossed the bar of 
death. Even those who do not believe that 
this existence will be conscious, those who 
suppose that death ends all, so far as our 
thought and feeling are concerned, and that 
the soul goes out when the heart stops, — 
even the doubters of immortality foresee a 
certain kind of a haven for their lives in the 
deep, dreamless, endless sleep of oblivion. 
There is no one now living who does not 
[ 50] 



THE LAST PORT 

owe a clear and definite answer to the ques- 
tion: Where do you wish and expe6l to go 
when you die? 

Now, I am quite sure that we have no 
right to try to separate this question of our 
haven after death from the questions in re- 
gard to our present aspirations and efforts 
in condud: and charadler. For every one 
who considers it soberly must see that our 
future destiny cannot possibly be anything 
else than the reward and consequence of 
our present life. Whether it be a state 
of spiritual blessedness, or an experience of 
spiritual woe, or simply a blank extindlion, 
it will come as the result of the deeds done 
in the body. It will be the fitting and in- 
evitable arrival at a goal towards which we 
have been moving in all our adions, and 
for which we have been preparing ourselves 
by all the secret affedlions and hopes and 
beliefs which we are daily working into our 
characters. 

But there is a reason, after all, and a very 

profound reason, why we should sometimes 

put this question of our desired haven after 

death in a distind: form, and why we should 

[51 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

try to give a true and honest answer to it, 
with an outlook that goes beyond the grave. 

It is because the answer will certainly de- 
termine our condudl now, and there is every 
reason to believe that it will afFed: the re- 
sult hereafter. 

Men say that the future life is only a 
possibility, or at best a probability, and that 
it is foolish to waste our present existence 
in the consideration of problems to which 
the only answer must be a "perhaps," or 
"I hope so," or "I believe so." But is it 
not one of the very conditions of our ad- 
vance, even in this world, that we should 
be forever going forward along lines which 
lie altogether in the region of the probable, 
and for which we have no better security 
than our own expedtation and wish that they 
shall lead us to the truth, anticipated, but 
as yet unproved and really unknown? 

"So far as man stands for anything," 
writes Professor William James, the psy- 
chologist, in his latest book, "The Will to 
Believe," "and is produdlive or originative 
at all, his entire vital fundtion may be said 
to have to deal with mayhes. Not a vi6tory is 
[ 52] 



THE LAST PORT 

gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage 
is done, except upon a maybe ; not a service, 
not a sally of generosity, not a scientific ex- 
ploration or experiment or text-book, that 
may not be a mistake. It is only by risking 
our persons from one hour to another that 
we live at all. And often enough our faith be- 
forehand in an uncertified result is the only 
thing that makes the result come true" 

Surely this is certain enough in regard to 
the difference between this present life as 
a dull and dismal struggle for the meat and 
drink that are necessary for an animal ex- 
istence, and as a noble and beautiful con- 
flid: for moral and spiritual ends. // is the 
faith that makes the result come true. As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he, and so is his 
world. For those whose thoughts are earthly 
and sensual, this is a beast's world. For 
those whose thoughts are high and noble 
and heroic, it is a hero's world. The strength 
of wishes transforms the very stuff of our 
existence, and moulds it to the form of our 
heart's inmost desire and hope. 

Why should it not be true in the world 
to come? Why should not the eternal re- 
[53] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 

suit, as well as the present course, of our 
voyaging depend upon our own choice of 
a haven beyond the grave? Christ says that 
it does. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God." 
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures 
in heaven." 

If the immortal life is a reality, is it not 
reasonable to think that the first condition 
of our attaining it is that we should per- 
sonally wish for it, and strive to enter into 
it? And must not our negledt or refusal to 
do this be the one thing that will inevitably 
shut us out from it, and make our eternity 
an outer darkness? 

Mark you, I do not say that it is reason- 
able to suppose that we must be absolutely 
certain of the reality of heaven in order to 
arrive thither. 

We may have many doubts and misgiv- 
ings. But deep down in our hearts there 
must be the wish to prove the truth of this 
great hope of an endless life with God, and 
the definite resolve to make this happy ha- 
ven the end of all our voyaging. 

This is what the apostle means by "the 
[54] 



THE LAST PORT 

power of an endless life." The passion of 
immortality is the thing that immortalizes 
our being. To be in love with heaven is the 
surest way to be fitted for it. Desire is the 
magnetic force of charafter. Charader is the 
compass of hfe. "He that hath this hope in 
him purifieth himself." 

Let me, then, put this question to you 
very simply and earnestly and personally. 

What is your desired haven beyond the 
grave? It is for you to choose. There are 
no secret books of fate in which your course 
is traced, and your destiny irrevocably ap- 
pointed. There is only the Lamb's book of 
life, in which new names are being written 
every day, as new hearts turn from dark- 
ness to light, and from the kingdom of 
Satan to the kingdom of God. No ship that 
sails the sea is as free to make for her port 
as you are to seek the haven that your in- 
most soul desires. And if your choice is 
right, and if your desire is real, so that you 
will steer and strive with God's help to reach 
the goal, you shall never be wrecked or lost. 

For of every soul that seeks to arrive at 
usefulness, which is the service of Christ, 
[ 55 ] 



SHIPS AND HAVENS 
and at holiness, which is the likeness of 
Christ, and at heaven, which is the eternal 
presence of Christ, it is written : So he hringeth 
them unto their desired haven. 

Like unto ships far off at sea, 

Outward or homeward bound, are we. 

Before, behind, and all around. 

Floats and swings the horizon's bound, 

Seems at its distant rim to rise 

And climb the crystal wall of the skies. 

And then again to turn and sink 

As if we could slide from its outer brink. 

Ah! it is not the sea, 

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, 

But ourselves 

That rock and rise 

With endless and uneasy motion, 

Now touching the very skies. 

Now sinking into the depths of ocean. 

Ah ! if our souls but poise and swing 

Like the compass in its brazen ring. 

Ever level and ever true 

To the toil and the task we have to do, 

We shall sail securely, and safely reach 

The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach 

The sights we see, and the sounds we hear. 

Will be those of joy and not of fear.* 

♦Longfellow. _ , _ 

[ 56 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

THIS little book is intended as a brief 
and simple introduction to the study 
of the Psalms, in English, as poetry. 

There are three ways in which we may 
study the Bible: as a revelation, as a docu- 
ment, and as literature. 

We may study it as the divinely inspired 
and perfedl rule of faith and condud. This 
is the point of view from which it appears 
most precious. For this is what we need 
most of all : the word of God to teach us 
what to believe and how to live. 

We may study it as a colledion of his- 
torical books, written under certain condi- 
tions, and refled:ing, in their contents and 
in their language, the circumstances in which 
they were produced. This is the aspedl in 
which criticism regards the Bible; and its 
intelledlual interest, as well as its religious 
value, is greatly enhanced by a clear vision 
of the truth about it from this point of view. 

We may study it also as literature. We 
may see in it a noble and impassioned in- 

[ 59 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

terpretation of nature and life, uttered in 
language of beauty and sublimity, touched 
with the vivid colours of human personality, 
and embodied in forms of enduring liter- 
ary art. 

None of these three ways of studying the 
Bible is hostile to the others. On the con- 
trary, they are helpful to one another, be- 
cause each of them gives us knowledge of 
a real fadlor in the marvellous influence of 
the Bible in the world. 

The true lover of the Bible has an in- 
terest in all the elements of its life as an 
immortal book. He wishes to discern, and 
rightly to appreciate, the method of its his- 
tory, the spirit of its philosophy, the sig- 
nificance of its fidlion, the power of its elo- 
quence, and the charm of its poetry. He 
wishes this all the more because he finds 
in it something which is not in any other 
book: a vision of God, a hope for man, and 
an inspiration to righteousness which are 
evidently divine. As the worshipper in the 
Temple would observe the art and strudure 
of the carven beams of cedar and the lily- 
work on the tops of the pillars the more 
[60 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

attentively because they beautified the house 
of his God, so the man who has a rehgious 
faith in the Bible will study more eagerly 
and carefully the literary forms of the book 
in which the Holy Spirit speaks forever. 

We shall do wisely to consider and ap- 
preciate the poetical element in the Psalms. 
The comfort, help, and guidance that they 
bring to our spiritual life will not be di- 
minished, but increased, by a perception of 
their exquisite form and finish. If a king 
sent a golden cup full of cheering cordial to 
a weary man, he might well admire the two- 
fold bounty of the royal gift. The beauty 
of the vessel would make the draught more 
grateful and refreshing. And if th« cup were 
mexhaustible, if it filled itself anew as often 
as it touched the lips, then the very shape 
and adornment of it would become signi- 
ficant and precious. It would be an inesti- 
mable possession, a singing goblet, a trea- 
sure of life. 

John Milton, whose faith in religion was 

as exalted as his mastery of the art of 

poetry was perfect, has expressed in a single 

sentence the spirit in which I would ap- 

[ 6i ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

proach the poetic study of the Book of 
Psalms: "Not in their divine arguments 
alone, but in the very critical art of compo- 
sition, the Psalms may be easily made to 
appear over all kinds of lyric poetry incom- 
parable." 



[62] 



LET us remember at the outset that a 
J considerable part of the value of the 
Psalms as poetry will lie beyond the reach 
of this essay. We cannot precisely measure 
it, nor give it a full appreciation, simply 
because we shall be dealing with the Psalms 
only as we have them in our English Bible. 
This is a real drawback; and it will be well 
to state clearly the two things that we lose 
in reading the Psalms in this way. 

First, we lose the beauty and the charm 
of verse. This is a serious loss. Poetry and 
verse are not the same thing, but they are 
so intimately related that it is difficult to 
divide them. Indeed, according to certain 
definitions of poetry, it would seem almost 
impossible. 

Suppose, for example, that we accept this 
definition: "Poetry is that variety of the 
Literature of Emotion which is written in 
metrical form."* How, then, can we have 
poetry when the form is not metrical.'' 

* Principles of Literary Criticism. C. T, Winchester. Page 232. 
[63 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

Yet who will deny that the Psalms as we 
have them in the English Bible are really 
and truly poetry? 

The only way out of this difficulty that 
I can see is to distinguish between verse 
as the formal element and rhythmical emo- 
tion as the essential element in poetry. In 
the original produdion of a poem, it seems 
to me, it is just to say that the embodiment 
in metrical language is a law of art which 
must be observed. But in the translation of 
a poem (which is a kind of refledion of it 
in a mirror) the verse may be lost without 
altogether losing the poem. 

Take an illustration from another art. A 
statue has the symmetry of solid form. You 
can look at it from all sides, and from every 
side you can see the balance and rhythm of 
the parts. In a photograph this solidity of 
form disappears. You see only a flat sur- 
face. But you still recognize it as the re- 
fledion of a statue. 

The Psalms were undoubtedly written, 
in the original Hebrew, according to a sys- 
tem of versification, and perhaps to some 
extent with forms of rhyme. 
[ 64] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
The older scholars, like Lowth and Her- 
der, held that such a system existed, but 
could not be recovered. Later scholars, like 
Ewald, evolved a system of their own. Mo- 
dern scholarship, represented by such au- 
thors as Professors Cheyne and Briggs, is 
reconstrudting and explaining more accu- 
rately the Hebrew versification. But, for the 
present at least, the only thing that is clear 
is that this system must remain obscure to 
us. It cannot be reproduced in English. The 
metrical versions of the Psalms are the least 
satisfadtory. The poet Cowley said of them, 
"They are so far from doing justice to David 
that methinks they revile him worse than 
Shimei." * We must learn to appreciate the 
poetry of the Psalms without the aid of 
those symmetries of form and sound in 
which they first appeared. This is a serious 
loss. Poetry without verse is still poetry, 
but it is like a bride without a bridal gar- 
ment. 

The second thing that we lose in reading 
the Psalms in English is something even 

*'The Works of Mr. Abraham Coivley. 3 vols. London, 1710. Pre- 
face to Pindarique Odes. Volume i. page 184. 

[ 65 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

more important. It is the heavy tax on the 
wealth of its meaning, which all poetry must 
pay when it is imported from one country 
to another, through the medium of transla- 
tion. 

The most subtle charm of poetry is its 
suggestiveness ; and much of this comes from 
the magical power which words acquire over 
memory and imagination, from their asso- 
ciations. This intimate and personal charm 
must be left behind when a poem passes 
from one language to another. The accom- 
paniment, the harmony of things remem- 
bered and beloved, which the very words 
of the song once awakened, is silent now. 
Nothing remains but the naked melody of 
thought. If this is pure and strong, it will 
gather new associations; as, indeed, the 
Psalms have already done in English, so 
that their familiar expressions have become 
charged with musical potency. And yet I 
suppose such phrases as "a tree planted by 
the streams of water," "a fruitful vine in 
the innermost parts of the house," "the 
mountains round about Jerusalem," can 
never bring to us the full sense of beauty, 
[ 66] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

the enlargement of heart, that they gave to 
the ancient Hebrews. 



But, in spite of this double loss, in the pas- 
sage from verse to prose and from Hebrew 
to English, the poetry of the Psalms is so 
real and vital and imperishable that every 
reader feels its beauty and power. 

It retains one valuable element of poetic 
form. This is that balancing of the parts of 
a sentence, one against another, to which 
Bishop Lowth first gave the familiar name 
of "parallelism."* The effedl of this simple 
artifice, learned from Nature herself, is 
singularly pleasant and powerful. It is the 
rise and fall of the fountain, the ebb and 
flow of the tide, the tone and overtone of 
the chiming bell. The twofold utterance 
seems to bear the thought onward like the 
wings of a bird. A German writer compares 
it very exquisitely to " the heaving and sink- 
ing of the troubled heart." 

It is this "parallelism" which gives such 
a familiar charm to the language of the 

* Lowth. De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum PraeleBiones. Oxon,, 1753. 

[67] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
Psalms. Unconsciously, and without recog- 
nizing the nature of the attraction, we grow 
used to the double cadence, the sound and 
the echo, and learn to look for its recurrence 
with delight. 

O come let us sing unto the Lord; 

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our 
salvation, 

Let us come before his presence with thanks- 
giving; 

And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. 

If we should want a plain English name 
for this method of composition we might 
call it thought-rhyme. It is easy to find varied 
illustrations of its beauty and of its power 
to emphasize large and simple ideas. 

Take for instance that very perfect psalm 
with which the book begins — a poem so 
complete, so compa6l, so delicately wrought 
that it seems like a sonnet. The subjedt is 
T^he Two Paths. 

The first part describes the way of the 
good man. It has three divisions. 

The first verse gives a description of his 
condu(5t by negatives — telling us what he 

[ 68 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

does not do. There is a triple thought-rhyme 
here. 

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the 

counsel of the ungodly, 
Nor standeth in the way of sinners, 
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 

The second verse describes his charadter 
positively, with a double thought-rhyme. 

But his delight is in the law of Jehovah; 
And in his law doth he meditate day and night. 

The third verse tells us the result of this 
character and conduft, in a fourfold thought- 
rhyme. 

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of 

water : 
That bringeth forth his fruit in his season : 
His leaf also shall not wither: 
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 

The second part of the psalm describes the 
way of the evil man. In the fourth verse 
there is a double thought-rhyme. 

The ungodly are not so: 
But are like the chaff which the wind driveth 
away. 

[ 69 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

In the fifth verse the consequences of 
this worthless, fruitless, unrooted life are 
shown, again with a double cadence of 
thought, the first referring to the judgement 
of God, the second to the judgement of men. 

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the 

judgment: 
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 

The third part o'f the psalm is a terse, 
powerful couplet, giving the reason for the 
different ending of the two paths. 

For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous: 
But the way of the ungodly shall perish. 

The thought-rhyme here is one of con- 
trast. 

A poem of very different character from 
this brief, serious, impersonal sonnet is 
found in the Forty-sixth Psalm, which 
might be called a national anthem. Here 
again the poem is divided into three parts. 

The first part (verses first to third) ex- 
presses a sense of joyful confidence in the 
Eternal, amid the tempests and confusions 
of earth. The thought-rhymes are in coup- 

[ 70] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
lets; and the second phrase, in each case, 
emphasizes and enlarges the idea of the first 
phrase. 

God is our refuge and strength: 
A very present help in trouble. 

The second part (verses fourth to seventh) 
describes the peace and security of the city 
of God, surrounded by furious enemies, 
but rejoicing in the Eternal Presence. The 
parallel phrases here follow the same rule 
as in the first part. The concluding phrase 
is the stronger, the more emphatic. The 
seventh verse gives the refrain or chorus 
of the anthem. 

The Lord of hosts is with us: 
The God of Jacob is our refuge. 

The last part (verses eighth to tenth) de- 
scribes in a very vivid and concrete way 
the deliverance of the people that have 
trusted in the Eternal. It begins with a coup- 
let, like those which have gone before. Then 
follow two stanzas of triple thought-rhymes, 
in which the thought is stated and intensi- 
fied with each repetition. 

[ 71 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the 

earth : 
He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in 

sunder: 
He burneth the chariot in the fire. 

Be still, and know that I am God: 
I will be exalted among the heathen: 
I will be exalted in the earth. 

The anthem ends with a repetition of the 
chorus. 

A careful study of the Psalms, even in 
English, will enable the thoughtful reader 
to derive new pleasure from them, by tra- 
cing the many modes and manners in which 
this poetic form of thought-rhyme is used 
to bind the composition together, and to 
give balance and harmony to the poem. 



Another element of poetic form can be 
discerned in the Psalms, not diredly, in the 
English version, but by its effeds. I mean 
the curious artifice of alphabetic arrange- 
ment. It was a favourite pradice among He- 
[ 72] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

brew poets to begin their verses with the 
successive letters of the alphabet, or some- 
times to vary the device by making every 
verse in a strophe begin with one letter, and 
every verse in the next strophe with the 
following letter, and so on to the end. 
The Twenty-fifth and the Thirty-seventh 
Psalms were written by the first of these 
rules; the One Hundred and Nineteenth 
Psalm follows the second plan. 

Of course the alphabetic artifice disap- 
pears entirely in the English translation. 
But its effefts remain. The Psalms written 
in this manner usually have but a single 
theme, which is repeated overand over again, 
in diflferent words and with new illustra- 
tions. They are kaleidoscopic. The material 
does not change, but it is turned this way 
and that way, and shows itself in new shapes 
and arrangements. These alphabetic psalms 
are charafterized by poverty of aftion and 
richness of expression. 



[ 73] 



II 

MILTON has already reminded us 
that the Psalms belong to the second 
of the three orders into which the Greeks, 
with clear discernment, divided all poetry: 
the epic, the lyric, and the dramatic. The 
Psalms are rightly called lyrics because they 
are chiefly concerned with the immediate 
and imaginative expression of real feeling. 
It Is the personal and emotional note that 
predominates. They are inward, confes- 
sional, intense ; outpourings of the quick- 
ened spirit; self-revelations of the heart. It 
is for this reason that we should never sepa- 
rate them in our thought from the adual 
human life out of which they sprang. We 
must feel the warm pulse of humanity in 
them in order to comprehend their mean- 
ing and eternal worth. So far as we can con- 
ned: them with the adual experience of men, 
this will help us to appreciate their reality 
and power. The effort to do this will make 
plain to us some other things which it is 
important to remember. 

[ 74 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
We shall see at once that the book does 
not come from a single writer, but from 
many authors and ages. It represents the 
heart of man in communion with God 
through a thousand years of history, from 
Moses to Nehemiah, perhaps even to the 
time of the Maccabaean revival. It is, there- 
fore, something very much larger and bet- 
ter than an individual book. 

It is the golden treasury of lyrics gath- 
ered from the life of the Hebrew people. 
And this gives to it a singular and precious 
quality of brotherhood. The fault, or at 
least the danger, of modern lyrical poetry 
is that it is too solitary and separate in its 
tone. It tends towards exclusiveness, over- 
refinement, morbid sentiment. Many Chris- 
tian hymns suffer from this defed. But the 
Psalms breathe a spirit of human fellowship 
even when they are most intensely personal. 
The poet rejoices or mourns in solitude, it 
may be, but not alone. He is one of the 
people. He is conscious always of the ties 
that bind him to his brother men. Compare 
the intense selfishness of the modern hymn: 

[ 75 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

I can but perish if I go; 

I am resolved to try; 
For if I stay away, I know 

I shall forever die, 

with the generous penitence of the Fifty- 
first Psalm : 

Then will I teach transgressors thy way; 
And sinners shall be converted unto thee. 

It is important to observe that there are 
several different kinds of lyrics among the 
Psalms. Some of them are simple and 
natural outpourings of a single feeling, like 
A Shepherd's Song about His Shepherd^ in 
the incomparable Twenty-third Psalm. 

This little poem is a perfe6t melody. It 
would be impossible to express a pure, un- 
mixed emotion — the feeling of joy in the 
Divine Goodness — more simply, more 
sweetly, with a more penetrating lyrical 
charm. The "valley of the death-shade," 
the "enemies" in whose presence the table 
is spread, are but dimly suggested in the 
background. The atmosphere of the psalm 
is clear and bright. The singing shepherd 
walks in light. The whole world is the 
[ 76] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

House of the Lord, and life is altogether 
gladness. 

How different is the tone, the quality, of 
the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm! 
This is not a melody, but a harmony; not 
a song, but an ode. The ode has been de- 
fined as "a strain of exalted and enthusi- 
astic lyrical verse, diredted to a fixed pur- 
pose and dealing progressively with one 
dignified theme." * This definition precisely 
fits the One Hundred and Nineteenth 
Psalm. 

Its theme is 'The Eternal Word. Every 
verse in the poem, except one, contains 
some name or description of the law, com- 
mandments, testimonies, precepts, statutes, 
or judgements of Jehovah. Its enthusiasm 
for the Divine Righteousness never fails 
from beginning to end. Its fixed purpose is 
to kindle in other hearts the flame of de- 
votion to the one Holy Law. It closes with 
a touch of magnificent pathos — a confes- 
sion of personal failure and an assertion of 
spiritual loyalty: 

* English Odes, seledled by Edmund Gosse. Preface, page xiiL 
[ 11 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
I have gone astray like a lost sheep: 
Seek thy servant: 
For I do not forget thy commandments. 

The Fifteenth Psalm I should call a small, 
didadtic lyric. Its title is 'The Good Citizen. It 
begins with a question: 

Jehovah, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? 
Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 

This question is answered by the descrip- 
tion of a man whose charad:er corresponds 
to the law of God. First there is a positive 
sketch in three broad lines: 

He that walketh uprightly, 
And worketh righteousness, 
And speaketh truth in his heart. 

Then comes a negative charaderization in 
a finely touched triplet: 

He that backbiteth not with his tongue. 
Nor doeth evil to his neighbour. 
Nor taketh up a reproach against his neigh- 
bour. 

This is followed by a couplet containing a 
strong contrast: 

[78] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned: 
But he honoureth them that fear Jehovah. 

Then the description goes back to the ne- 
gative style again and three more touches 
are added to the pidture: 

He that sweareth to his own hurt and 

changeth not, 
He that putteth not out his money to usury, 
Nor taketh reward against the innocent. 

The poem closes with a single vigorous 
line, summing up the character of the good 
citizen and answering the question of the 
first verse with a new emphasis of security 
and permanence. 

Doing these things, he shall never be moved. 

The Seventy-eighth, One Hundred and 
Fifth, and One Hundred and Sixth Psalms 
are lyrical ballads. They tell the story of 
Israel in Egypt, and in the Wilderness, and 
in Canaan, with swift, stirring phrases, and 
with splendid flashes of imagery. Take this 
passage from the Seventy-eighth Psalm as 
an example: 

[79] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
He clave the rocks in the wilderness, 
And gave them drink out of the great depths. 

He brought streams also out of the rock, 
And caused waters to run down like rivers. 

And they sinned yet more against him. 
Provoking the Most High in the wilderness. 

They tempted God in their hearts^ 
Asking meat for their lust. 

Yea, they spake against God: 
They said. Can God furnish a table in the wil- 
derness? 

Behold, he smote the rock that the waters 

gushed out, 
And the streams overflowed; 
Can he give bread also ? 
Can he provide flesh for his people ? 

Therefore Jehovah heard and was wroth: 
So a fire was kindled against facoh^ 
And anger also came up against Israel: 
Because they believed not in God, 
And trusted not in his salvation : 

Though he had commanded the clouds from 
above, 

[ 8° ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

And opened the doors of heaven, 
And had rained down manna upon them to eat, 
And had given them of the corn of heaven^ 
Man did eat angels' food: 

He sent them meat to the full. 

He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven. 

And by his power he brought in the south wind. 

Me rained fiesh also upon them as dust^ 

And feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. 

And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, 
Round about their habitations; 
So they did eat and were filled, 
For he gave them their own desire. 

They were not estranged from their lust: 
But while the meat was yet in their mouths^ 
The wrath of God came upon them^ and slew the 

fattest of them ^ 
And smote down the chosen men of IsraeL 

The Forty-fifth Psalm is a Marriage Ode: 
the Hebrew title calls it a Love Song. It 
bears all the marks of having been com- 
posed for some royal wedding-feast in Je- 
rusalem. 



[8i ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

There are many nature lyrics among the 
Psalms. The Twenty-ninth is notable for 
its rugged realism. It is a Song of Thunder. 

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars : 
Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon : 
He maketh them also to skip like a calf: 
Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. 

The One Hundred and Fourth, on the con- 
trary, is full of calm sublimity and medita- 
tive grandeur. 

Jehovah, my God, thou art very great: 
Thou art clothed with honour and majesty: 

Who coverest thyself with light as with a gar- 
ment; 
Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. 

The Nineteenth is famous for its splendid 
comparison between "the starry heavens 
and the moral law." 

I think that we may find also some dra- 
matic lyrics among the Psalms — poems 
composed to express the feelings of an 
historic person, like David or Solomon, in 
certain well-known and striking experiences 
of his life. That a later writer should thus 
[ 82 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
embody and express the truth dramatically 
through the personality of some great hero 
of the past, involves no falsehood. It is a 
mode of utterance which has been common 
to the literature of all lands and of all ages. 
Such a method of composition would cer- 
tainly be no hindrance to the spirit of in- 
spiration. The Thirty-first Psalm, for in- 
stance, is ascribed by the title to David. But 
there is strong reason, in the phraseology 
and in the spirit of the poem, to believe that 
it was written by the Prophet Jeremiah. 



[83] 



Ill 

IT is not to be supposed that our rever- 
ence for the Psalms in their moral and 
religious aspects will make us put them all 
on the same level poetically. There is a dif- 
ference among the books of the New Tes- 
tament in regard to the purity and dignity 
of the Greek in which they are written. 
There is adiiference among St. Paul's Epis- 
tles in regard to the clearness and force of 
their style. There is a difference even among 
the chapters of the same epistle in regard 
to the beauty of thought and language. In 
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the thir- 
teenth chapter is poetic, and the fourteenth 
is prosaic. Why should there not be a dif- 
ference in poetic quality among the Psalms ? 
There is a difference. The honest reader 
will recognize it. It will be no harm to him 
if he should have his favourites among the 
poems which have been gathered from many 
centuries into this great colledlion. 

There are some, like the Twenty-seventh, 
[ 84] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

the Forty-second, the Forty-sixth, the 
Fifty-first, the Sixty-third, the Ninety-first- 
the Ninety-sixth, the One Hundred and 
Third, the One Hundred and Seventh, the 
One Hundred and Thirty-ninth, which are 
among the noblest poems of the world. 
Others move on a lower level, and show 
the traces of effort and constraint. There 
are also manifest alterations and interpola- 
tions, which are not always improvements. 
Dr. Perowne, who is one of the wisest and 
most conservative of modern commenta- 
tors, says, "Many of the Psalms have not 
come down to us in their original form,"* 
and refers to the alterations which the Sev- 
entieth makes in the Fortieth, and the 
Fifty-third in the Fourteenth. The last two 
verses of the Fifty-first were evidently 
added by a later hand. The whole book, in 
its present form, shows the marks of its 
compilation and use as the Hymn-Book of 
the Jewish people. Not only in the titles, 
but also in the text, we can discern the work 
of the compiler, critic, and adapter, some- 
times wise, but occasionally otherwise. 

*The Book o/'Pw/OTi.z volumes, London, 1883. Volume i. page 8z. 

[85] 



IV 

THE most essential thing in the ap- 
preciation of the poetry of the Psalms 
is the recognition of the three great spirit- 
ual qualities which distinguish it, and are 
the evidences, not only of genius, but also 
of inspiration. 

The first of these is the deep and genuine 
love of nature. The psalmists delight in the 
vision of the world, and their joy quickens 
their senses to read alike the larger hiero- 
glyphs of glory written in the stars and the 
delicate tracings of transient beauty on leaf 
and flower; to hear alike the mighty roar- 
ing of the sea and the soft sweet laughter 
of the rustling cornfields. But in all these 
they see and hear the handwriting and the 
voice of God. It is His presence that makes 
the world sublime and beautiful. The di- 
redl, piercing, elevating sense of this pre- 
sence simplifies, enlarges, and ennobles their 
style, and makes it diflTerent from other 
nature-poetry. They never lose themselves, 
like Theocritus and Wordsworth and Shel- 

[86] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 
ley and Tennyson, in the contemplation 
and description of natural beauty. They see 
it, but they always see beyond it. Compare, 
for example, a modern versified translation 
with the psalm itself: 

The spacious firmament on high. 
With all the blue ethereal sky 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their Great Original proclaim.* 

Addison's descriptive epithets betray a con- 
scious effort to make a splendid pidure. But 
the psalmist felt no need of this; a larger 
impulse lifted him at once into "the grand 
style:" 

The heavens declare the glory of God; 
And the firmament showeth his handiwork. 

The second quality of the poetry of the 
Psalms is their passionate sense of the 
beauty of holiness. Keats was undoubtedly 
right in his suggestion that the poet must 
always see truth in the form of beauty. 
Otherwise he may be a philosopher, or a 
critic, or a moralist, but he is not a true 
poet. But we must go on from this stand- 

* Joseph Addison, 1712. 

[87] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

point to the Platonic dodlrine that the high- 
est form of beauty is spiritual and ethical. 
It is the harmony of the soul with the eter- 
nal music of the Good. And the highest 
poets are those who, like the psalmists, are 
most ardently enamoured of righteousness. 
This fills their songs with sweetness and 
fire incomparable and immortal: 

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for 
ever: 

The judgments of the Lord are true and right- 
eous altogether. 

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, 
than much fine gold: 

Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 

The third quality of the poetry of the Psalms 
is their intense joy in God. No lover ever 
poured out the longings of his heart to- 
wards his mistress more eagerly than David 
voiced his desire and thirst for God. No 
conqueror ever sang of vidlory more exul- 
tantly than David rejoiced in the Lord, who 
was his light and his salvation, the strength 
of his life and his portion forever. 

After all, the true mission of poetry is to 

[88 ] 



THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS 

increase joy. It must, indeed, be sensitive 
to sorrow and acquainted with grief. But it 
has wings given to it in order that it may 
bear us up into the ether of gladness. 

There is no perfect joy without love. 
Therefore love-poetry is the best. But the 
highest of all love-poetry is that which cele- 
brates, with the Psalms, 

that Love which is and was 
My Father and my Brother and my God. 



[89] 



JOY AND POWER 



JOY AND POWER 

If ye know these things^ happy are ye if ye do them. 
St. "John xiii. 17. 

I ASK you to think for a little while a- 
bout the religion of Christ in its relation 
to happiness. 

This is only one point in the circle of 
truth at the centre of which Jesus stands. 
But it is an important point because it marks 
one of the lines of power which radiate from 
Him. To look at it clearly and steadily is 
not to disregard other truths. The mariner 
takes the whole heavens of astronomy for 
granted while he shapes his course by a 
single star. 

In the wish for happiness all men are 
strangely alike. In their explanations of it 
and in their ways of seeking it they are sin- 
gularly different. Shall we think of this wish 
as right, or wrong; as a true star, or a will- 
o'-the-wisp? If itis righttowishto be happy, 
what are the conditions on which the ful- 
filment of this wish depends? These are the 
two questions with which I would come to 

[93] 



JOY AND POWER 

Christ, seeking instru6lion and guidance. 

I. The desire of happiness, beyond all 
doubt, is a natural desire. It is the law of 
life itself that every being seeks and strives 
toward the perfedion of its kind, the real- 
ization of its own specific ideal in form and 
fundion, and a true harmony with its en- 
vironment. Every drop of sap in the tree 
flows toward foliage and fruit. Every drop 
of blood in the bird beats toward flight and 
song. In a conscious being this movement 
toward perfe6lion must take a conscious 
form. This conscious form is happiness, — 
the satisfadlion of the vital impulse, — the 
rhythm of the inward Hfe, — the melody of 
a heart that has found its keynote. To say 
that all men long for this is simply to con- 
fess that all men are human, and that their 
thoughts and feelings are an essential part 
of their life. Virtue means a completed man- 
hood. The joyful welfare of the soul be- 
longs to the fulness of that ideal. Holiness 
is wholeness. In striving to realize the true 
aim of our being, we find the wish for hap- 
piness implanted in the very heart of our 
effort. 

[94] 



JOY AND POWER 

Now what does Christ say in regard to 
this natural human wish? Does He say that 
it is an illusion? Does He condemn and 
deny it? Would He have accepted Goethe's 
definition: "religion is renunciation"? 

Surely such a notion is far from the spirit 
of Jesus. There is nothing of the hardness 
of Stoicism, the coldness of Buddhism, in 
Christ's gospel. It is humane, sympathetic, 
consoling. Unrest and weariness, the fever 
of passion and the chill of despair, soul- 
solitude and heart-trouble, are the very 
thingsthat He comes to cure. He begins His 
great discourse with a series of beatitudes. 
"Blessed" is the word. "Happy" is the 
meaning. Nine times He rings the changes 
on that word, like a silver bell sounding 
from His fair temple on the mountain-side, 
calling all who long for happiness to come 
to Him and find rest for their souls. 

Christ never asks us to give up merely 
for the sake of giving up, but always in order 
to win something better. He comes not to 
destroy, but to fulfil, — to fill full, — to re- 
plenish life with true, inward, lasting riches. 
His gospel is a message of satisfadion, of at- 
[95 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

tainment, of felicity. Its voice is not a sigh, 
but a song. Its final word is a benedidion, 
2i good-saying. "These things have I spoken 
unto you, that my joy might remain in you, 
and that your joy might be full." 

If we accept His teaching we must be- 
lieve that men are not wrong in wishing for 
happiness, but wrong in their way of seek- 
ing it. Earthly happiness ^ — pleasure that be- 
longs to the senses and perishes with them, 
— earthly happiness is a dream and a de- 
lusion. But happiness on earth, — spiritual joy 
and peace, blossoming here, fruiting here- 
after, — immortal happiness, is the keynote 
of life in Christ. 

And if we come to Him, He tells us four 
great secrets in regard to it. 

i.' It is inward, and not outward; and so 
it does not depend on what we have, but 
on what we are. 

ii. It cannot be found by dire6l seeking, 
but by setting our faces toward the things 
from which it flows; and so we must climb 
the mount if we would see the vision, we 
must tune the instrument if we would hear 
the music. 

[96] 



JOY AND POWER 

iii. It is not solitary, but social; and so 
we can never have it without sharing it with 
others. 

iv. It is the result of God's will for us, 
and not of our will for ourselves ; and so 
we can only find it by giving our lives up, 
in submission and obedience, to the con- 
trol of God. 

For this is peace, — to lose the lonely note 
Of self in love's celestial ordered strain: 
And this is joy, — to find one's self again 
In Him whose harmonies forever float 
Through all the spheres of song, below, 

above, — 
For God is music, even as God is love. 

This is the divine dodlrine of happiness as 
Christ taught it by His life and with His lips. 
If we want to put it into a single ptitase, 
I know not where we shall find a more per- 
fe6l utterance than in the words which have 
been taught us in childhood, — words so 
strong, so noble, so cheerful, that they sum- 
mon the heart of manhood like marching- 
music: "Man's chief end is to glorify God 
and enjoy Him forever." 

[97] 



JOY AND POWER 

Let us accept without reserve this teach- 
ing of our Divine Lord and Master in re- 
gard to the possibility and the duty of hap- 
piness. It is an essential element of His 
gospel. The atmosphere of the New Tes- 
tament is not gloom, but gladness; not de- 
spondency, but hope. The man who is not 
glad to be a Christian is not the right kind 
of a Christian. 

The first thing that commended the 
Church of Jesus to the weary and disheart- 
ened world in the early years of her tri- 
umph was her power to make her children 
happy, — happy in the midst of affliftions, 
happy in the release from the burden of 
guilt, happy in the sense of Divine Father- 
hood and human brotherhood, happy in 
Christ's vidory over sin and death, happy 
in the assurance of an endless life. At mid- 
night in the prison, Paul and Silas sang 
praises, and the prisoners heard them. The 
lateral force of joy, — that was the power of 
the Church. 

"Poor world," she cried, "so deep accurst, 
Thou runn'st from pole to pole 

[98] 



"joy and power 

To seek a draught to slake thy thirst, — 
Go seek it in thy soul." 

Tears washed the trouble from her face! 

She changed into a child! 
'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood, — a place 

Of ruin, — but she smiled! 

Much has the Church lost of that pris- 
tine and powerful joy. The furnace of civ- 
ilization has withered and hardened her. 
She has become anxious and troubled about 
many things. She has sought earthly hon- 
ours, earthly powers. Richer she is than ever 
before, and probably better organized, and 
perhaps more intelligent, more learned, — 
but not more happy. The one note that is 
most often missing in Christian life, in Chris- 
tian service, is the note of spontaneous joy. 
Christians are not as much calmer, stead- 
ier, stronger, and more cheerful than other 
people as they ought to be. Some Chris- 
tians are among the most depressing and 
worryful people in the world, — the most 
difficult to live with. And some, indeed, have 
adopted a theory of spiritual ethics which 
puts a special value upon unhappiness.The 
[99] 



JOY AND POWER 
dark, morbid spirit which mistrusts every 
joyful feeling, and depreciates every cheer- 
ful virtue, and looks askance upon every 
happy life as if there must be something 
wrong about it, is a departure from the 
beauty of Christ's teaching to follow the 
dark-browed philosophy of the Orient. 

The religion of Jesus tells us that cheer- 
ful piety is the best piety. There is some- 
thing finer than to do right against incli- 
nation, and that is to have an inclination to 
do right. There is something nobler than 
relu6tant obedience, and that is joyful obe- 
dience. The rank of virtue is not measured 
by its disagreeableness, but by its sweetness 
to the heart that loves it. The real test of 
character is joy. For what you rejoice in, 
that you love. And what you love, that you 
are like. 

I confess frankly that I have no admira- 
tion for the phrase "disinterested benevo- 
lence," to describe the mainspring of Chris- 
tian morals. I do not find it in the New Tes- 
tament, — neither the words nor the thing. 
Interested benevolence is what I find there. 
To do good to others is to make life inter- 
[ 100 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

esting and find peace for our own souls. To 
glorify God is to enjoy Him. That was the 
spirit of the first Christians. Was not St. 
Paul a happier man than Herod? Did not 
St. Peter have more joy of his life than 
Nero? It is said of the first disciples that 
they "did eat their meat with gladness and 
singleness of heart." Not till that pristine 
gladness of life returns will the Church re- 
gain her early charm for the souls of men. 
Every great revival of Christian power — 
like those which came in the times of St. 
Francis of Assisi and of John Wesley — 
has been marked and heralded by a revival 
of Christian joy. 

If we want the Church to be mighty in 
power to win men, to be a source of light 
in the darkness, a fountain of life in the 
wilderness, we must remember and renew, 
in the spirit of Christ, the relation of re- 
ligion to human happiness. 

II. What, then, are the conditions upon 
which true happiness depends? Christ tells 
us in the text: If ye know these things^ happy 
are ye if ye do them. 

This is the blessing with a double //. "If 
[ i°i ] 



JOY AND POWER 

ye know," — this Is the knowledge which 
Christ gives to faith. "If ye do," — this is 
the obedience which faith gives to Christ. 
Knowing and Doing, — these are the twin 
pillars, Jachin and Boaz,on which the house 
of happiness is built. The harmony of faith 
and life, — this is the secret of inward joy 
and power. 

You remember when these words were 
spoken. Christ had knelt to wash the dis- 
ciples' feet. Peter, in penitence and self- 
reproach, had hesitated to permit this lowly 
service of Divine love. But Christ answered 
by revealing the meaning of His a6l as a 
symbol of the cleansing of the soul from sin. 
He reminded the disciples of what they 
knew by faith, — that He was their Saviour 
and their Lord. By deed and by word He 
called up before them the great spiritual 
truths which had given new meaning to their 
life. He summoned them to live according 
to their knowledge, to a6t upon the truth 
which they believed. 

I am sure that His words sweep out be- 
yond that quiet upper room, beyond that 
beautiful incident, to embrace the whole 
[ 102 ] 



• JOY AND POWER 

spiritual life. I am sure that He is revealing 
to us the secret of happy living which lies 
at the very heart of His gospel when He 
says : If ye know these things^ happy are ye if 
ye do them. 

i. "If ye know," — there is, then, a cer- 
tain kind of knowledge without which we 
can not be happy. There are questions aris- 
ing in human nature which demand an an- 
swer. If it is denied we can not help being 
disappointed, restless, and sad. This is the 
price we have to pay for being conscious, 
rational creatures. If we were mere plants 
or animals we might go on living through 
our appointed years in complete indiffer- 
ence to the origin and meaning of our ex- 
istence. But within us, as human beings, 
there is something that cries out and rebels 
against such a blind life. Man is born to 
ask what things mean. He is possessed with 
the idea that there is a significance in the 
world beyond that which meets his senses. 

John Fiske has brought out this fad: very 
clearly in his last book, " Through Nature to 
God." He shows that "in the morning twi- 
light of existence the Human Soul vaguely 
[ ^°3 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

reached forth toward something akin to it- 
self, not in the realm of fleeting phenomena, 
but in the Eternal Presence beyond." He 
argues by the analogy of evolution, which 
always presupposes a real relation between 
the life and the environment to which it 
adjusts itself, that this forth-reaching and 
unfolding of the soul implies the everlast- 
ing reality of religion. 

The argument is good. But the point 
which concerns us now is simply this: The 
forth-reaching, questioning soul can never 
be satisfied if it touches only a dead wall in 
the darkness, if its seeking meets with the 
reply, "You do not know, and you never 
can know, and you must not try to know." 
This is agnosticism. It is only another way 
of spelling unhappiness. 

"Since Christianity is not true," wrote 
Ernest Renan, "nothing interests me, or 
appears worthy my attention." That is the 
logical result of losing the knowledge of 
spiritual things, — a life without real inter- 
est, without deep worth, — a life with a bro- 
ken spring. 

But suppose Renan is mistaken. Sup- 
[ 104 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

pose Christianity is true. Then the first 
thing that makes it precious is that it an- 
swers our questions, and tells us the things 
that we must know in order to be happy. 
Christianity is a revealing religion, a 
teaching religion, a religion which conveys 
to the inquiring spirit certain great and posi- 
tive solutions of the problems of life. It is 
not silent, nor ambiguous, nor incompre- 
hensible in its utterance. It replies to our 
questions with a knowledge which, though 
limited, is definite and sufficient. It tells 
us that this "order of nature, which con- 
stitutes the world's experience, is only one 
portion of the total universe." That the 
ruler of both worlds, seen and unseen, is 
God, a Spirit, and the Father of our spirits. 
That He is not distant from us nor indif- 
ferent to us, but that He has given His 
eternal Son Jesus Christ to be our Saviour. 
That His Spirit is ever present with us to 
help us in our conflids with evil, in our ef- 
forts toward goodness. That He is making 
all things work together for good to those 
that love Him. That through the sacrifice 
of Christ every one who will may obtain the 
[ 105 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

forgiveness of sins and everlasting peace. 
That through the resurrection of Christ all 
who love H im and their fellow-men shall ob- 
tain the vidtory over death and live forever. 

Now these are doctrines. And it is just 
because Christianity contains such doc- 
trines that it satisfies the need of man. 

"The first and the most essential condi- 
tion of true happiness," writes Professor 
Carl Hilty, the eminent Swiss jurist, "is a 
firm faith in the moral order of the world. 
What is the happy life? It is a life of con- 
scious harmony with this Divine order of 
the world, a sense, that is to say, of God's 
companionship. And wherein is the pro- 
foundest unhappiness? It is in the sense of 
remoteness from God, issuing into incur- 
able restlessness of heart, and finally into 
incapacity to make one's life fruitful or ef- 
fediive." 

What shall we say, then, of the proposal 
to adapt Christianity to the needs of the 
world to-day by eliminating or ignoring its 
charaderistic dodrines? You might as well 
propose to fit a ship for service by taking 
out its compass and its charts and cutting 
[ io6 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

off its rudder. Make Christianity silent in 
regard to these great questions of spiritual 
existence, and you destroy its power to sat- 
isfy the heart. 

What would the life of Christ mean if 
these deep truths on which He rested and 
from which He drew His strength, were 
uncertain or illusory? It would be the most 
pathetic^ mournful, heart-breaking of all 
phantoms. 

What consoling, cheering power would 
be left in the words of Jesus if His doc- 
trine were blotted out and His precept left 
to stand alone? Try the experiment, if it 
may be done without irreverence: read His 
familiar discourses in the shadow of agnos- 
ticism. 

* Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs 
is a hopeless poverty. Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they know not whether they 
shall see God. Blessed are ye when men 
shall revile you and persecute you, for ye 
have no promise of a heavenly reward. 

* Enter into thy closet, and when thou 
hast shut the door, keep silence, for thou 
canst not tell whether there is One to hear 

[ 107 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

thy voice in secret. Take no thought for 
the morrow, for thou knowest not whether 
there is a Father who careth for thee. 

*God is unknown, and they that wor- 
ship Him must worship Him in ignorance 
and doubt. No man hath ascended up into 
heaven, neither hath any man come down 
from heaven, for the Son of Man hath 
never been in heaven. That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
of the spirit is a dream. Man shall not live 
by bread alone, neither shall he listen for 
any word from the mouth of God. I pro- 
ceeded forth and came from darkness, I 
came of myself, I know not who sent me. 
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, 
and they follow me, but I can not give unto 
them eternal life, for they shall perish and 
death shall pluck them out of my hand. 
Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe 
not in God, ye need not believe in me. 
Keep my commandments, and I will not 
pray for you, and ye shall abide without a 
Comforter. In the world ye shall have tri- 
bulation, but be of good cheer, for ye know 
not whether there is a world to come. I 
[ ^08 ] 



JOY AND POWER 
came forth from darkness into the world, 
and again I leave the world and return to 
darkness. Peace I leave with you. If ye 
loved me ye would rejoice because I said, 
I go into darkness, and where I am there 
shall ye be also.' 

Is it conceivable that any suffering, sor- 
rowing human soul should be comforted 
and strengthened by such a message as this ? 
Could it possibly be called a gospel, glad 
tidings of great joy to all people? 

And yet what has been omitted here from 
the words of Christ? Nothing but what men 
call dodrines: the personality of God, the 
divinity of Christ, the Atonement, the pre- 
sence and power of the Holy Spirit, the 
sovereignty of the Heavenly Father, the 
truth of the divine revelation, the reality 
of the heavenly world, the assurance of im- 
mortal life. But it is just from these doc- 
trines that the teaching of Jesus draws its 
peculiar power to comfort and inspire. They 
are the rays of light which disperse the 
gloom of uncertainty. They are the tones 
of celestial music which fill the heart of man 
with good cheer. 

[ 109 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

Let us never imagine that we can 
strengthen Christianity by leaving out the 
great dodtrines which have given it life and 
power. Faith is not a mere matter of feel- 
ing. It is the acceptance of truth, positive, 
unchanging, revealed truth, in regard to 
God and the world, Christ and the soul, 
duty and immortality. The first appeal to 
faith lies in the clearness and vividness, the 
simplicity and joy, with which this truth is 
presented. 

There has not been too much preaching 
of dod:rine in this age — there has been too 
little. And what there has been, has been 
too dull and cold and formal, too vague 
and misty, too wavering and uncertain. 

What the world wants and waits for to- 
day is a strong, true, vital preaching of doc- 
trine. The Church must realize anew the 
precious value of the truths which Christ 
has given her. She must not conceal them 
or cast them away; she must bring them 
out into the light, press them home upon 
the minds and hearts of men. She must sim- 
plify her statement of them, so that men 
can understand what they mean. She must 
[no] 



JOY AND POWER 

not be content with repeating them in the 
language of past centuries. She must trans- 
late them into the language of to-day. First 
century texts will never wear out because 
they are inspired. But seventeenth century 
sermons grow obsolete because they are 
not inspired. Texts from the Word of God, 
preaching in the words of living men, — 
that is what we need. 

We must think about the doctrines of 
Christianity [more earnestly and profoundly. 
We must renew our Christian evidences, 
as an army fits itself with new weapons. 
The old-fashioned form of the " argument 
from design in nature" has gone out with 
the old-fashioned books of science which it 
used. But there is a new and more wonder- 
ful proof of God's presence in the world, — 
the argument from moral ends in evolution. 
Every real advance of science makes the 
intelligent order of the universe more sub- 
limely clear. Every century of human ex- 
perience confirms the Divine claims and 
adds to the Divine triumphs of Jesus Christ. 
Social progress has followed to a hair's 
breadth the lines of His gospel; and He 
[ "I ] 



JOY AND POWER 

lays His hand to-day with heavenly wis- 
dom on the social wants that still trouble 
us, "the social lies that warp us from the 
living truth." Christ's view of life and the 
world is as full of sweet reasonableness now 
as it was in the first century. Every moral 
step that man has taken upward has brought 
a wider, clearer vision of his need of such 
a religion as that which Christ teaches. 

Let not the Church falter and blush for 
her doftrines. Let her not turn and go down 
the hill of knowledge to defend her posi- 
tion in the valley of ignorance. Let her go 
up the hill, welcoming every wider outlook, 
rejoicing in every new discovery, gathering 
fresh evidences of the truths which man 
must believe concerning God and new mo- 
tives to the duties which God requires of 
man. 

But in doing this we must put the em- 
phasis of our preaching to-day where it be- 
longs, where Christ puts it, on the dodrines 
that are most important to human life and 
happiness. We can afford to let the fine 
metaphysical distindions of theology rest for 
a while, and throw all our force on the cen- 

[112] 



JOY AND POWER 

tral, fundamental truths which give stead- 
iness and courage and cheer to the heart 
of man. I will not admit that it makes no 
difference to a man of this age whether or 
not he believes in the personal God and 
the Divine Christ. If he really believes, it 
makes all the difference between spiritual 
strength and spiritual weakness, between 
optimism and pessimism. I will not admit 
that it makes no difference to a learned scho- 
lar or a simple labourer to-day whether he 
accepts or ignores the dodrine of the atone- 
ment, the do6trine of personal immortality. 
If he knows that Christ died for him, that 
there is a future beyond the grave, it makes 
all the difference between despair and hope, 
between misery and consolation, between 
the helpless frailty of a being that is puffed 
out like a candle, and the joyful power of 
an endless life. 

My brethren, we must work and pray 
for a true revival of Christian dodrine in 
our age. We must deepen our own hold 
upon the truths which Christ has taught 
us. We must preach them more simply, 
more confidently, more reasonably, more 
[ "3 ] 



JOY AND POWER 
earnestly. We must draw from them the hap- 
piness and the help, the comfort and the in- 
spiration, that they have to give to the souls 
of men. But most of all, we must keep them 
in close and living touch with the problems 
of daily duty and experience. For no doc- 
trine, however high, however true, can make 
men happy until it is translated into life. 

ii. Here is the second //, on which the 
power of religion to confer happiness de- 
pends : If ye know^ happy are ye if ye do 
these things. 

Between the knowing and the doing there 
is a deep gulf. Into that abyss the happi- 
ness of many a man slips, and is lost. There 
is no peace, no real and lasting felicity, for 
a human life until the gulf is closed, and 
the continent of condud meets the conti- 
nent of creed, edge to edge, lip to lip, firmly 
joined forever. 

It is not a blessing to know the things 
that Christ teaches, and then go on living 
as if they were false or doubtful. It is a 
trouble, a torment, a secret misery. To know 
that God is our Father, and yet to with- 
hold our love and service from Him; to 
[ "4] 



JOY AND POWER 

know that Christ died for us, and yet to 
deny Him and refuse to follow Him; to 
know that there is an immortal life, and yet 
to waste and lose our souls in the pursuit 
of sensual pleasure and such small portion 
of the world as we may hope to gain, — 
surely that is the deepest of all unhappi- 
ness. 

But the right kind of knowing carries in 
its heart the doing of the truth. And the 
right kind of doing leads to a fuller and hap- 
pier knowing. " If any man will do God's 
will," declares Christ, "he shall know of 
the doctrine." 

Let a man take the truth of the Divine 
Fatherhood and begin to conform his life 
to its meaning. Let him give up his anx- 
ious worryings, his murmurings, his com- 
plainings, and trust himself completely to 
his Father's care. Let him do his work from 
day to day as well as he can and leave the 
results to God. Let him come to his Father 
every day and confess his faults and ask for 
help and guidance. Let him try to obey and 
please God for love's sake. Let him take 
refuge from the trials and confusions and 
[ "5 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

misunderstandings of the world, from the 
wrath of men and the strife of tongues, in 
the secret of his Father's presence. Surely 
if he learns the truth thus, by doing it, he 
will find happiness. 

Or take the truth of immortahty. Let a 
man live now in the light of the knowledge 
that he is to live forever. How it will deepen 
and strengthen the meaning of his exis- 
tence, lift him above petty cares and am- 
bitions, and make the things that are worth 
while precious to his heart! Let him really 
set his affedlions on the spiritual side of life, 
let him endure afflidlions patiently because 
he knows that they are but for a moment, 
let him think more of the soul than of the 
body, let him do good to his fellow-men 
in order to make them sharers of his immor- 
tal hope, let him purify his love and friend- 
ship that they may be fit for the heavenly 
life. Surely the man who does these things 
will be happy. It will be with him as with 
Lazarus, in Robert Browning's poem, "The 
Epistle of Karshish." Others will look at 
him with wonder and say: 

[ii6] 



JOY AND POWER 
Whence has the man the balm that brightens 

all? 
This grown man eyes the world now like a 

child. 

Yes, my brethren, this is the sure result of 
following out the dodrines of Christ in ac- 
tion, of living the truths that He teaches, 
— a simple life, a childlike life, a happy 
life. And this also the Church needs to-day, 
as well as a true revival of dodtrine. 

A revival of simplicity, a revival of sin- 
cerity, a revival of work: this will restore 
unto us the joy of salvation. And with the 
joy of salvation will come a renewal and 
expansion of power. 

The inconsistency of Christians is the 
stronghold of unbelief. The lack of vital 
joy in the Church is the chief cause of in- 
difference in the world. The feeble energy, 
the faltering and reludant spirit, the weari- 
ness in well-doing with which too many 
believers impoverish and sadden their own 
hearts, make other men question the reality 
and value of religion and turn away from 
it in cool negled:. 

[ "7 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

What, then, is the duty of the Church? 
What must she do to win the confidence 
of the world? What is the best way for her 
to "prove her dodlrine all divine"? 

First, she must increase her labours in 
the love of men; second, she must practice 
the simple life, deepening her trust in God. 

Suppose that a fresh flood of energy, 
brave, cheerful, joyous energy, should be 
poured into all the forms of Christian work. 
Suppose that Foreign Missions and Home 
Missions should no longer have to plead 
and beg for support, but that plenty of 
money should come flowing in to send out 
every missionary that wants to go, and that 
plenty of the strongest and best young men 
should dedicate their lives to the ministry 
of Christ, and that every household where 
His gospel is believed should find its high- 
est honour and its greatest joy in helping 
to extend His kingdom. 

And then suppose that the Christian life, 
in its daily manifestation, should come to 
be marked and known by simplicity and 
happiness. Suppose that the followers of 
Jesus should really escape from bondage to 
[ "8 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

the evil spirits of avarice and luxury which 
infedl and torment so much of our compli- 
cated, tangled, artificial, modern life. Sup- 
pose that instead of increasing their wants 
and their desires, instead of loading them- 
selves down on life's journey with so many 
bags and parcels and boxes of superfluous 
luggage and bric-a-brac that they are forced 
to sit down by the roadside and gasp for 
breath, instead of wearing themselves out 
in the dusty ways of ostentation and vain 
show or embittering their hearts because 
they can not succeed in getting into the 
weary race of wealth and fashion, — suppose 
instead of all this, they should turn to quiet 
ways, lowly pleasures, pure and simple joys, 
"plain living and high thinking." Suppose 
they should truly find and show their hap- 
piness in the knowledge that God loves 
them and Christ died for them and heaven 
is sure, and so set their hearts free to re- 
joice in life's common mercies, the light of 
the sun, the blue of the sky, the splendour 
of the sea, the peace of the everlasting hills, 
the song of birds, the sweetness of flowers, 
the wholesome savour of good food, the 
■ [ "9 ] 



JOY AND POWER 

delights of adiion and motion, the refresh- 
ment of sleep, the charm of music, the 
blessings of human love and friendship, — 
rejoice in all these without fear or misgiv- 
ing, because they come from God and be- 
cause Christ has sandified them all by His 
presence and touch. 

Suppose, I say, that such a revival of 
the joy of living in Christ and working 
for Christ should silently sweep over the 
Church in the Twentieth Century. What 
would happen? Great would be the peace 
of her children. Greater still would be their 
power. 

This is the message which I have to 
bring to you, my brethren, in this General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. You 
may wonder that it is not more distindive, 
more ecclesiastical, more specially adapted 
to the peculiarities of our own denomina- 
tion. You may think that it is a message 
which could just as well be brought to 
any other Church on any other occasion. 
With all my heart I hope that is true. The 
things that I care for most in our Church 
are not those which divide us from other 
[ 120 ] 



JOY AND POWER 
Christians, but those which unite us to them. 
The things that I love most in Christianity 
are those which give it power to save and 
satisfy, to console and cheer, to inspire and 
bless, human hearts and lives. The thing 
that I desire most for Presbyterianism is 
that it should prove its mission and extend 
its influence in the world by making men 
happy in the knowing and the doing of the 
things which Christ teaches. 

The Church that the Twentieth Century 
will hear most gladly and honour most 
sincerely will have two marks. It will be 
the Church that teaches most clearly and 
strongly the truths that Jesus taught. It 
will be the Church that finds most happi- 
ness in living the simple life and doing 
good in the world. 



[ 121] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

Overcome evil with good. Romans xii. 2 1 . 

THE Battle of Life is an ancient phrase 
consecrated by use in Commencement 
Orations without number. Two modern ex- 
pressions have taken their place beside it 
in our own day, — the Strenuous Life and 
the Simple Life. 

Each of these phrases has its own sig- 
nificance and value. It is when they are 
overemphasized and driven to extremes 
that they lose their truth and become catch- 
words of folly. The simple life which blandly 
ignores all care and confli6t soon becomes 
flabby and invertebrate, sentimental and 
gelatinous. The strenuous life which does 
everything with set jaws and clenched fists 
and fierce effort soon becomes strained and 
violent, a prolonged nervous spasm. 

Somewhere between these two extremes 
must lie the golden mean, — a life that has 
strength and simplicity, courage and calm, 
power and peace. But how can we find this 
golden line and live along it? Some truth 

[ 125 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

there must be in the old phrase which 
speaks of life as a battle. No confli6l, no 
charader. Without strife, a weak life. But 
what is the real meaning of the battle ? 
What is the vital issue at stake ? What are 
the things worth fighting for ? In what spirit, 
with what weapons, are we to take our part 
in the warfare? 

There is an answer to these questions 
in the text : Overcome evil with good. The 
man who knows this text by heart, knows 
the secret of a life that is both strenuous 
and simple. For here we find the three things 
that we need most: a call to the real battle 
of life; a plan for the right campaign; and 
a promise of final vi(5tory. 

I. Every man, like the knight in the old 
legend, is born on a field of battle. But the 
warfare is not carnal, it is spiritual. Not the 
East against the West, the North against 
the South, the"Haves" against the "Have- 
nots;" but the evil against the good, — 
that is the real conflid of life. 

The attempt to deny or ignore this con- 
flid: has been the stock in trade of every 
false dodlrine that has befogged and be- 
[ 126 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
wildered the world since the days of Eden. 
The fairy tale that the old serpent told to 
Eve is a poetic symbol of the lie funda- 
mental, — the theory that sin does not 
mean death, because it has no real existence 
and makes no real difference. This ancient 
falsehood has an infinite wardrobe of dis- 
guises. 

You will find it pranked out in philo- 
sophic garb in the do6lrines of those who 
teach that all things are linked together by 
necessity of nature or Divine will, and that 
nothing could ever have happened other- 
wise than just as it has come to pass. Such 
a theory of the universe blots out all differ- 
ence between good and evil except in name. 
It leaves the fence-posts standing, but it 
takes away the rails, and throws everything 
into one field of the inevitable. 

You will find the same falsehood in a 
more crude form in the popular teachings 
of what men call "the spirit of the age," 
the secular spirit. According to these doc- 
trines the problem of civilization is merely 
a problem of ways and means. If society 
were better organized, if wealth were more 
[ 127 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

equally distributed, if laws were changed, 
or perhaps abolished, all would be well. If 
everybody had a full dinner-pail, nobody 
need care about an empty heart. Human 
misery the secular spirit recognizes, but it 
absolutely ignores the fad that nine-tenths 
of human misery comes from human sin. 

You will find the same falsehood dis- 
guised in sentimental costume in the very 
modern comedy of Christian Science, which 
dresses the denial of evil in pastoral garb 
of white frock and pink ribbons, like an 
innocent shepherdess among her lambs. 
"Evil is nothing," says this wonderful Sci- 
ence. " It does not really exist. It is an illu- 
sion of mortal mind. Shut your eyes and 
it will vanish." 

Yes, but open your eyes again and you 
will see it in the same place, in the same 
form, doing the same work. A most per- 
sistent nothing, a most powerful nothing! 
Not the shadow cast by the good, but the 
cloud that hides the sun and casts the 
shadow. Not the "silence implying sound," 
but the discord breaking the harmony. Evil 
is as real as the fire that burns you, as the 
[ 128 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

flood that drowns you. Evil is as real as 
the typhoid germ that you can put under 
a microscope and see it squirm and grow. 
Evil is negative,^yes, but it is a real 
negative, — as real as darkness, as real as 
death. 

There are two things in every human 
heart which bear witness to the existence 
and reality of evil: first, our judgements 
of regret, and second, our judgements of 
condemnation. 

How often we say to ourselves, "Would 
that this had not come to pass ! " How often 
we feel in regard to our own adtions, " Would 
that I had done differently!" This is the 
judgement of regret; and it is a silent wit- 
ness of the heart to the conviction that 
some things are not inevitable. It is the con- 
fession that a battle has been lost which 
might have beei) won. It is the acknowledge- 
ment that things which are, but are not 
right, need not have been, if we and our 
fellow-men had seen more clearly and fol- 
lowed more faithfully the guiding star of 
the good. 

And then, out of the judgement of regret, 
[ 129 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

Springs the deeper judgement of condemna- 
tion. If the failure in duty was not inevi- 
table, then it was base. The false word, the 
unjust deed, the foul adlion, seen as a sur- 
render to evil, appears hateful and guilty. 
It deserves the indignation and the shame 
which attach to all treason. And the spirit 
which lies behind all these forms of dis- 
loyalty to the good, — the spirit which 
issues in selfishness and sensuality, cruelty 
and lust, intemperance and covetousness, — 
this animating spirit of evil which works 
against the Divine will and mars the peace 
and order of the universe is the great Ad- 
versary against whom we must fight for our 
own lives and the life of the world. 

All around us lies his dark, secret king- 
dom, tempting, threatening, assaulting the 
soul. To ignore it, is to walk blindfold 
among snares and pitfalls. Try if you will 
to shut it out, by wrapping your heart in 
dreams of beauty and joy, living in the fair 
regions of art or philosophy, reading only 
the books which speak of evil as if it did 
not exist or were only another form of good- 
ness. Soon you will be shaken out of the 
[ 130 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

dream into the reality. You will come into 
contad: with evil so close, so loathsome, that 
you can not deny it. You will see that it 
has its soldiers, its servants, its emissaries, 
as ardent and enthusiastic in its cause as if 
they were serving the noblest of masters. 
It inspires literature and supports news- 
papers; now intelligent and cultured, draw- 
ing the arts into its service; now coarse and 
vulgar, with pictures that shock the taste 
as much as they debase the conscience. It 
wins adherents and turns them into advo- 
cates. It organizes the dealers in drunken- 
ness and debauchery into powerful societies 
for mutual prote6tion. It creates lobbies 
and controls legislatures. It corrupts the 
government of great cities and rots out the 
social life of small towns. Even when its 
outward manifestations are repressed and 
its grosser forms resisted, it steals its way 
into men's hearts, eating out the roots of 
human trust and brotherhood and kindness, 
and filling the air with gossip and spite, 
envy, malice and all uncharitableness. 

I am glad that since we have to live in 
a world where evil exists, we have a religion 
[ '3'] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

which does not bandage our eyes. The first 
thing that we need to have rehgion do for 
us is to teach us to face the fads. No man 
can come into touch with the Divine per- 
sonaHty of Jesus Christ, no man can listen 
to His teaching, without feeling that the 
distindion between good and evil to Him 
is vital and everlasting. The choice between 
them is to Him the great choice. The con- 
flid between them is to Him the great con- 
flid. Evil is the one thing that God has 
never willed. Good is the one thing that 
He wills forever. Evil is first and last a 
rebellion against His will. He is altogether 
on the side of good. Much that is, is con- 
trary to His will. There is a mighty strife 
going on, a battle with eternal issues, but 
not an eternal battle. The evil that is against 
Him shall be cast out and shall perish. The 
good that overcomes the evil shall live for- 
ever. And those who yield their lives to 
God and receive His righteousness in Christ 
are made partakers of everlasting life. 

This is the teaching of Jesus; and I thank 
God for the honesty and virility of His 
religion which makes us face the fads and 
[ 132 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

calls US to take a man's part in the real 
battle of life. 

II. But what is the plan of campaign which 
Christianity sets before us? In what spirit 
and with what weapons are we to enter the 
great confli<5l against the evil that is in the 
world? 

The natural feeling of the heart in the 
presence of evil is wrath, and the natural 
weapon of wrath is force. To punish crime, 
to avenge wrong, to put down wickedness 
with a strong hand, — that is the first im- 
pulse of every one who has the instinfts 
of manhood. 

And as this is natural, so it is, also, within 
a certain sphere needful, and to a certain 
extent useful. Armies and navies exist, at 
least in theory, to prevent injustice among 
nations. Laws are made to punish wrong- 
doers. Courts, police-forces, and prisons are 
maintained to suppress evil with power. 

But while we recognize this method of 
dealing with evil as useful to a certain ex- 
tent and necessary within a certain sphere, 
we must remember that it has its stri6b 
limitations. 

[ 133 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
First, it belongs to the state and not to 
the individual. When the private man as- 
sumes to punish evil with force he sanations 
lynch-law, which is a terror to the innocent 
as well as to the guilty. Then we have the 
blood-feud and the vendetta, mob-rule and 
anarchy. 

Second, the suppression of evil by force 
is only a temporary relief, a protection for 
the moment. It does not touch the root of 
the matter. You send the murderer out of 
the world by a regulated flash of lightning. 
But you do not send murder out of the 
world. To do that you must reach and 
change the heart of Cain. You put the thief 
in prison, but when he comes out he will 
be ready to steal again, unless you can purify 
his conscience and control his will. You 
assault and overthrow some system of mis- 
government, and "turn the rascals out." 
But unless you have something better to 
substitute, all you have done is to make 
room for a new set of rascals, — a new swarm 
of mosquitoes with fresh appetites and larger 
capacities. 

Third, the method of fighting evil with 
[ 134] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

force on its own ground often has a bad 
efFe6l on those who follow it. Wrestle with 
a chimney-sweep and you will need a bath. 
Throw back the mud that is thrown at 
you, and you will have dirty hands. Answer 
Shimei when he curses you and you will 
echo his profanity. Many a man has entered 
a crusade against intemperance and proved 
himself as intemperate in his language as 
other men are in their potations. Many a 
man has attacked a bad cause with righteous 
indignation and ended in a personal squab- 
ble with most unrighteous anger. 

No, my brother-men, the best way to 
fight against evil is not to meet it on its 
own ground with its own weapons. There 
is a nobler method of warfare, a divine plan 
of campaign given to us in the religion of 
Christ. Overcome evil with good. This is the 
secret of the battle of life. 

Evil is potent not so much because it 
has command of money and the "big bat- 
talions," but because it has control of the 
hearts of men. It spreads because human 
hearts are lying fallow and ready to welcome 
the seeds of all kinds of weeds. It persists 
[ 135 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

because too much of what we call virtue is 
negative, and selfish, and frost-bound, — 
cold-storage virtue, — the poor piety which 
terminates in a trembling anxiety to save 
our own souls. 

The way to countera6t and conquer evil 
in the world is to give our own hearts to 
the dominion of good, and work the works 
of God while it is day. The strongest of 
all obstacles to the advance of evil is a clean 
and generous man, doing his duty from 
day to day, and winning others, by his 
cheerful fidelity, to serve the same Master. 
Diseases are not the only things that are 
contagious. Courage is contagious. Kind- 
ness is contagious. Manly integrity is con- 
tagious. All the positive virtues, with red 
blood in their veins, are contagious. The 
heaviest blow that you can strike at the 
kingdom of evil is just to follow the advice 
which the dying Sir Walter Scott gave to 
his son-in-law, Lockhart: "Be a good man." 
And if you want to know how, there is but 
one perfe6l and supreme example, — the life 
of Him who not only did no evil, but went 
about doing good. 

[ 136 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
Now take that thought of fighting evil 
with good and apply it to our world and 
to ourselves. 

Here are monstrous evils and vices in 
society. Let intemperance be the type of 
them all, because so many of the others 
are its children. Drunkenness ruins more 
homes and wrecks more lives than war. 
How shall we oppose it? I do not say that 
we shall not pass resolutions and make laws 
against it. But I do say that we can never 
really conquer the evil in this way. I hold 
with Phillips Brooks that "all prohibitory 
measures are negative. That they have their 
uses no one can doubt. That they have 
their limits is just as clear." 

The stronghold of intemperance lies in 
the vacancy and despair of men's minds. 
The way to attack it is to make the sober 
life beautiful and happy and full of interest. 
Teach your boys how to work, how to read, 
how to play, you fathers, before you send 
them to college, if you want to guard them 
against the temptations of strong drink and 
the many shames and sorrows that go with 
it. Make the life of your community cheer- 
[ 137 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
ful and pleasant and interesting, you re- 
formers, provide men with recreation which 
will not harm them, if you want to take 
away the power of the gilded saloon and 
the grimy boozing-ken. Parks and play- 
grounds, libraries and music-rooms, clean 
homes and cheerful churches, — these are 
the efficient foes of intemperance. And the 
same thing is true of gambling and lubri- 
city and all the other vices which drag men 
down by the lower side of their nature be- 
cause the higher side has nothing to cling 
to, nothing to sustain it and hold it up. 

What are you going to do, rriy brother- 
men, for this higher side of human life? 
What contribution are you going to make 
of your strength, your time, your influence, 
your money, your self, to make a cleaner, 
fuller, happier, larger, nobler life possible 
for some of your fellow-men? I do not ask 
how you are going to do it. You may do 
it in business, in the law, in medicine, in 
the ministry, in teaching, in literature. But 
this is the question: What are you going to 
give personally to make the human life of 
the place where you do your work, purer, 
[ 138 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
Stronger, brighter, better, and more worth 
living? That will be your best part in the 
warfare against vice and crime. 

The positive method is the only efficient 
way to combat intelledlual error and spirit- 
ual evil. False dodrines are never argued 
out of the world. They are pushed back by 
the incoming of the truth as the darkness 
is pushed back by the dawn. Phillips Brooks 
was right. It is not worth while to cross the 
street to break a man's idol. It is worth 
while to cross the ocean to tell him about 
God. The skilful fencer who attacks your 
doubts and drives you from corner to cor- 
ner of unbelief and leaves you at last in 
doubt whether you doubt or not, does you 
a certain service. He gives you exercise, 
takes the conceit out of you. But the man 
who lays hold of the real faith that is hid- 
den underneath your doubt, — the silent 
longing for God and goodness, the secret 
attradlion that draws your heart toward 
Jesus Christ as the only one who has the 
words of everlasting life, — the man who 
takes hold of this buried faith and quickens 
it and makes you dare to try to live by it, 
[ 139 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

— ah, that is the man who helps you indeed. 
My brothers, if any of you are going to 
be preachers remember this : What we men 
need is not so much an answer to our doubts, 
as more nourishment for our faith. 

The positive method is the only way of 
vidtory in our struggle with the evil that 
dwells in our own nature and besets our 
own hearts. The reason why many men fail 
is because they thrust the vice out and then 
forget to lay hold on the virtue. They evift 
the unclean spirit and leave a vacant house. 
To cease to do evil is important, but to 
learn to do good is far more important. 
Reformation never saved a man. Transfor- 
mation is the only way. And to be trans- 
formed, a man must welcome the Spirit of 
Good, the Holy Spirit, into his heart, and 
work with Him every day, doing the will 
of God. 

There are two ways of fighting fever. 
One is to dose the sick people with quinine 
and keep the fever down. The other is to 
drain the marshes, and purify the water, 
and cleanse the houses, and drive the fever 
out. Try negative, repressive religion, and 
[ 140 ] 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

you may live, but you will be an invalid. 
Try positive, vital religion, and you will be 
well. 

There is an absorption of good that 
guards the soul against the infedion of evil. 
There is a life of fellowship with Christ that 
can pass through the furnace of the world 
without the smell of fire on its garments, — 
a life that is full of interest as His was, be- 
ing ever about His Father's business; a life 
that is free and generous and blessed, as 
His was, being spent in doing good, and 
refreshed by the sense of God's presence 
and approval. 

Last summer I saw two streams empty- 
ing into the sea. One was a sluggish, nig- 
gardly rivulet, in a wide, fat, muddy bed; 
and every day the tide came in and drowned 
out that poor little stream, and filled it with 
bitter brine. The other was a vigorous, joy- 
ful, brimming mountain-river, fed from un- 
failing springs among the hills; and all the 
time it swept the salt water back before it 
and kept itself pure and sweet; and when 
the tide came in, it only made the fresh 
water rise higher and gather new strength 
[ HI 1 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 
by the delay; and ever the living stream 
poured forth into the ocean its tribute of 
living water, — the symbol of that influence 
which keeps the ocean of life from turning 
into a Dead Sea of wickedness. 

My brother-men, will you take that liv- 
ing stream as a type of your life in the 
world? The question for you is not what 
you are going to get out of the world, but 
what you are going to give to the world. 
The only way to meet and overcome the 
inflowing tide of evil is to roll against it 
the outflowing river of good. 

My prayer for you is that you may re- 
ceive from Christ not only the watchword 
of this nobler life, but also the power to 
fulfil it. 



[ 142 ] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

Stand ye in the ways., and see ; and ask for the old 
paths., where is the good way ; and walk therein., and 
ye shall find rest for your souls. Jeremiah vi. i6. 

THIS advice was given to people who 
were in peril and perplexity. The 
kingdom of Judah was threatened with de- 
strudion, which could be averted only by 
wise and prompt adtion. But the trouble 
was to decide in which dire6tion that a6lion 
should be taken. The nation was divided 
into loud parties, and these parties into 
noisy wings. Every man had a theory of his 
own, or a variation of some other man's 
theory. 

Some favoured an alliance with the East; 
some preferred the friendship of the West; 
others, a course of diplomatic dalliance; a 
few stood out for honest independence. 
Some said that what the country needed 
was an increase of wealth; some held that 
a splendid and luxurious court, like that of 
Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, would bring 
prosperity; others maintained that the trou- 

[ H5 ] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

bles of the land could be healed only by a 
return to "simpler manners, purer laws." 
Among the nobility and their followers all 
kinds of novelties in the worship of idols 
were in fashion and new gods were imported 
every season. The philosophers cultivated 
a discreet indifference to all religious ques- 
tions. The prophets taught that the only 
salvation for the nation lay in the putting 
away of idolatry and the revival of faith in 
the living and true God. 

Judah was like a man standing at the 
cross-roads, on a stormy night, with all the 
guide-posts blown down. Meantime the 
Babylonian foe was closing in around Je- 
rusalem, and it was necessary to do some- 
thing, or die. 

The liberty of choice was an embarrass- 
ment. The minds of men alternated be- 
tween that rash haste which is ready to fol- 
low any leader who makes noise enough, 
and that skeptical spirit which doubts 
whether any line of adion can be right be- 
cause so many lines are open. Into this at- 
mosphere of fever and fog came the word of 
the prophet. Let us consider what it means. 
[ h6] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

Stand ye in the ways and see — that means 
deliberation. When you are at a jun6tion it 
is no time to shut your eyes and run at full 
speed. Where there are so many ways some 
of them are likely to be wrong. A turning- 
point is the place for prudence and fore- 
thought. 

Ask for the old paths, what is the good way 
— that means guidance. No man is forced to 
face the problems of life alone. Other men 
have tried the different ways. Peace, pros- 
perity, vidlory have been won by the nation 
in former times. Inquire of the past how 
these blessings were secured. Look for the 
path which has already led to safety and hap- 
piness. Let history teach you which among 
all these crossing ways is the best to follow. 

And walk therein — that means adion. 
When you have deliberated, when you have 
seen the guiding light upon the way of secu- 
rity and peace, then go ahead. Prudence is 
worthless unless you put it into practice. 
When in doubt do nothing; but as long as 
you do nothing you will be in doubt. Never 
man or nation was saved by ina6tion. The 
only way out of danger is the way into work. 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

Gird up your loins, trembling Judah, and 
push along your chosen path, steadily, 
bravely, strenuously, until you come to your 
promised rest. 

Now I am sure this was good counsel 
that the prophet gave to his people in the 
days of perplexity. It would have been well 
for them if they had followed it. I am sure 
it is also good counsel for us, a word of 
God to steady us and stimulate us amid 
life's confusions. Let me make it a personal 
message to you. 

Stand in the ways; Ask for the good way; 
Walk therein^ — Deliberation, Guidance, 
Adion.Will you take these words with you, 
and try to make them a vital influence in 
your life? 

I. First, I ask you to stand in the ways^ and 
see. I do not mean to say that you have 
not already been doing this to a certain ex- 
tent. The great world is crossed by human 
footsteps which make paths leading in all 
direftions. Men travel through on different 
ways; and I suppose some of you have no- 
ticed the fad, and thought a little about it. 

There is the way of sensuality. Those 
[ h8 ] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

who walk in it take appetite as their guide. 
Their main obje6t in life is to gratify their 
physical desires. Some of them are delicate, 
and some of them are coarse. That is a 
matter of temperament. But all of them 
are hungry. That is a matter of principle. 
Whether they grub in the mire for their 
food like swine, or browse daintily upon the 
tree-tops like the giraffe, the question of 
life for those who follow this way is the 
same. "How much can we hold? How can 
we obtain the most pleasure for these five 
senses of ours before they wear out?" And 
the watchword of their journey is, "Let us 
eat and drink and be merry, for we do not 
expedl to die to-morrow." 

There is the way of avarice. Those who 
follow it make haste to be rich. The al- 
mighty dollar rolls before them along the 
road, and they chase it. Some of them plod 
patiently along the highway of toil. Others 
are always leaping fences and trying to find 
short cuts to wealth. But they are alike in 
this: whatever they do by way of avocation, 
the real vocation of their life is to make 
money. If they fail, they are hard and bit- 
[ H9 ] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

ter; if they succeed they are hard and proud. 
But they all bow down to the golden calf, 
and their motto is, "Lay up for yourselves 
treasures upon earth." 

There is the way of social ambition. 
Those who walk in it have their eyes fixed 
on various prizes, such as titles of honour, 
public office, large acquaintance with pros- 
perous people, the reputation of leading the 
fashion. But the real satisfaction that they get 
out of it all is simply the feeling of noto- 
riety, the sense of belonging to a circle to 
which ordinary people are not admitted and 
to whose doings the world, just for this rea- 
son, pays envious attention. This way is less 
like a road than like a ladder. Most of the 
people who are on it are "climbers." 

There are other ways, less clearly marked, 
more difficult to trace, — the way of moral 
indifference, the way of intellectual pride, 
the way of hypocrisy, the way of indecision. 
This last is not a single road: it is a net- 
work of sheep-tracks, crossing and recross- 
ing the great highways, leading in every 
direction, and ending nowhere. The men 
who wander in these aimless paths go up 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

and down through the world, changing their 
purposes, following one another blindly, 
forever travelling, but never arriving at the 
goal of their journey. 

Through all this tangle there runs an- 
other way, — the path of faith and duty. 
Those who walk in it beheve that life has 
a meaning, — the fulfilment of God's will; 
and a goal, — the attainment of perfeft har- 
mony with Him. They try to make the best 
of themselves in soul and body by training 
and discipline. They endeavour to put their 
talents to the noblest use in the service of 
their fellow-men, and to unfold their facul- 
ties to the highest joy and power in the life 
of the Spirit. They seek an education to 
fit them for work, and they do their work 
well because it is a part of their education. 
They respedl their consciences, and cherish 
their ideals. They put forth an honest effort 
to be good and to do good and to make the 
world better. They often stumble. They 
sometimes fall. But, take their life from end 
to end, it is a faithful attempt to walk in 
"the way of righteousness, which is the way 
of peace." 

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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

Such are some of the ways that lead 
through the world. And they are all open 
to us. We can travel by the road that 
pleases us. Heredity gives us our outfit. En- 
vironment supplies our company. But when 
we come to the cross-roads, the question is, 
"Boy, which way will you ride?" 

Deliberation is necessary, unless we wish 
to play a fool's part. No amount of energy 
will take the place of thought. A strenuous 
life, with its eyes shut, is a kind of wild 
insanity. A drifting life, with its eyes open, 
is a kind of mild idiocy. 

The real question is, "How will you live? 
After what rule and pattern? Along what 
way? Toward what end?" 

Will you let chance answer that question 
for you? Will you let yourself be led blind- 
fold by the first guide that oifers, or run 
stupidly after the crowd without asking 
whither they are going? You would not a6l 
so in regard to the shortest earthly journey. 
You would not rush into the railway station 
and jump aboard of the first train you saw, 
without looking at the signboards. Surely 
if there is anything in regard to which we 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

need to exercise deliberation, it is the choice 
of the way that we are to take through the 
world. You have thought a good deal about 
what business, what profession you are to 
follow. Think more deeply, I beg you, 
about how you are to follow it and what 
you are to follow it for. Stand in the ways, 
and see. 

II. Second, I earnestly advise you to ask 
for the old paths, where is the good way. 

I do not regard this as a mere counsel 
of conservatism, an unqualified commen- 
dation of antiquity. True, it implies that 
the good way will not be a new discovery, 
a track that you and I strike out for our- 
selves. Among the paths of condud, that 
which is entirely original is likely to be false, 
and that which is true is likely to have some 
footprints on it. When a man comes to us 
with a scheme of life which he has made all 
by himself, we may safely say to him, as 
the old composer said to the young musi- 
cian who brought him a symphony of the 
future, "It is both new and beautiful; but 
that which is new is not beautiful, and that 
which is beautiful is not new." 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

But this is by no means the same as 
saying that everything ancient is therefore 
beautiful and true, or that all the old ways 
are good. The very point of the text is that 
we must discriminate among antiquities, — 
a thing as necessary in old chairs and old 
books as in old ways. 

Evil is almost, if not quite, as ancient 
as good. Folly and wisdom, among men at 
least, are twins, and we can not distinguish 
between them by the gray hairs. Adam's 
way was old enough; and so was the way 
of Cain, and of Noah's vile son, and of 
Lot's lewd daughters, and of Balaam, and 
of Jezebel, and of Manasseh. Judas Iscariot 
was as old as St. John. Ananias and Sapphira 
were of the same age with St. Peter and 
St. Paul. 

What we are to ask for is not simply the 
old way, but that one among the old ways 
which has been tested and tried and proved 
to be the good way. The Spirit of Wisdom 
tells us that we are not to work this way 
out by logarithms, or evolve it from our 
own inner consciousness, but to learn what 
it is by looking at the lives of other men 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

and marking the lessons which they teach 
us. Experience has been compared to the 
stern-light of a ship which shines only on 
the road that has been traversed. But the 
stern-light of a ship that sails before you is 
a head-light to you. 

You do not need to try everything for 
yourself in order to understand what it 
means. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us 
that he gave his heart to know madness and 
folly; and that it was all vanity and vexation 
of spirit. It will be a wise economy for us 
to accept his lesson without paying his tui- 
tion-fee over again. 

It is perfedlly safe for a man to take it 
as a fa6l that fire burns, without putting his 
hand into the flame. He does not need to 
try perilous experiments with his own soul 
in order to make sure that lust defiles, that 
avarice hardens, that frivolity empties, that 
selfishness cankers the heart. He may un- 
derstand the end of the way of sensuality 
by looking at any old pleasure-seeker, 

Gray, and gap-toothed, and lean as death, 

mumbling the dainties that he can no longer 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

enjoy, and glowering with bleared eyes at 
the indulgences which now mock him even 
while they tempt him. The goal of the path 
of covetousness may be discerned in the 
face of any old money- worshipper, keeping 
guard over his piles of wealth like a surly 
watch-dog; or, if perchance he has failed, 
haunting the places where fortune has de- 
ceived him, like an unquiet ghost. 

Inquire and learn; consider and discern. 
There need be no doubt about the direction 
of life's various ways. 

Which are the nations that have been 
most peaceful and noble and truly prosper- 
ous? Those that have followed pride and 
luxury and idolatry? or those that have 
cherished sobriety and justice, and acknow- 
ledged the Divine law of righteousness? 

Which are the families that have been 
most serene and pure and truly fortunate? 
Those in which there has been no discipline, 
no restraint, no common faith, no mutual 
love? or those in which sincere religion has 
swayed life to its stern and gracious laws, 
those in which parents and children have 
walked together to the House of God, and 
[ 156] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 

knelt together at His altar, and rejoiced 
together in His service? 

I tell you, my brother-men, it has be- 
come too much the fashion in these latter 
days to sneer and jeer at the old-fashioned 
ways of the old-fashioned American house- 
hold. Something too much of iron there 
may have been in the Puritan's temper; 
something too little of sunlight may have 
come in through the narrow windows of 
his house. But that house had foundations, 
and the virile virtues lived in it. There 
, were plenty of red corpuscles in his blood, 
and his heart beat in time with the eternal 
laws of right, even though its pulsations 
sometimes seemed a little slow and heavy. 
It would be well for us if we could get 
back into the old way, which proved it- 
self to be the good way, and maintain, as 
our fathers did, the sandlity of the family, 
the sacredness of the marriage-vow, the 
solemnity of the mutual duties binding 
parents and children together. From the 
households that followed this way have 
come men that could rule themselves as 
well as their fellows, women that could be 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

trusted as well as loved. Read the history 
of such families, and you will understand 
the truth of the poet's words, — 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-con- 
trol, — 
These three alone lead life to sovereign 
power. 

Look around you in the world and see 
what way it is that has brought your fel- 
low-men to peace and quietness of heart, 
to security and honour of life. Is it the way 
of unbridled self-indulgence, of unscrupu- 
lous greed, of aimless indolence? or is it 
the way of self-denial, of cheerful industry, 
of fair dealing, of faithful service? If true 
honour lies in the respedl and grateful love 
of one's fellow-men, if true success lies in 
a contented heart and a peaceful conscience, 
then the men who have reached the highest 
goal of life are those who have followed 
most closely the way to which Jesus Christ 
points us and in which He goes before us. 

III. Walk therein^ and ye shall find rest for 
your souls. Right adion brings rest. 

Rest! Rest! How that word rings like 
a sweet bell through the turmoil of our 
[ '58] 



THE GOOD OLD WAY 
age. We are rushing to and fro, destroying 
rest in our search for it. We drive our auto- 
mobiles from one place to another, at furi- 
ous speed, not knowing what we shall do 
when we get there. We make haste to ac- 
quire new possessions, not knowing how 
we shall use them when they are ours. We 
are in a fever of new discoveries and theo- 
ries, not knowing how to apply them when 
they are made. We feed ourselves upon 
novel speculations until our heads swim 
with the vertigo of universal knowledge 
which changes into the paresis of universal 
doubt. 

But in the hours of silence, the Spirit of 
Wisdom whispers a secret to our hearts. 
Rest depends upon conduSl. The result of your 
life depends upon your choosing the good way, 
and walking in it. 

And to you I say, my brother-men, 
choose Christ, for He is the Way. All the 
strength and sweetness of the best possible 
human hfe are embodied in Him. All the 
truth that is needed to inspire and guide 
man to noble a6lion and fine charader is 
revealed in Him. He is the one Master al- 
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THE GOOD OLD WAY 

together worthy to be served and followed. 
Take His yoke upon you and learn of Him, 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 



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